Focke-Museum

The excellent collections of this museum compensate for its distant location. Founded in 1918, when the history museum was amalgamated with the decorative arts museum, it presents Bremen’s art and culture from the Middle Ages to the present day. Exhibits from patrician houses and original sculptures from the facade of the town hall testify to the wealth of the Hanseatic town. Other sections are devoted to the archaeology of the region as well as to whaling and emigration to the US in the 19^th and 20th centuries.

The nearby Rhododendronpark offers a pleasant respite from the museums. It includes 1,600 varieties of rhododendron which become a sea of flowers from late April to June.

This wonderful, marine museum, designed by the renowned architect Hans Scharoun, displays both originals and models of a wide range of ships, dating from the Roman Empire to the present day. A special hall displays the Hanse Kogge, a merchant ship dredged from the bottom of the Weser River in 1962. This type of ship was capable of holding 120 tons of cargo, and handled the entire merchandise of northern Europe during the late Middle Ages. Displayed outside, in the open-air part of the museum, are the last great German sailing boat Seute Deern, the polar ship Grönland and Wilhelm Bauer, a U-boat from World War II.

The small village of Worpswede, northeast of Bremen, takes the visitor into the world of art. From 1889 until the end of World War II it was a famous artists’ colony, situated in the middle of peat bogs. Apart from poets, such as Rainer Maria Rilke, and such architects as Bernhard Hoetger, the fame of this village rested principally on the painters: Fritz Mackensen, Otto Modersohn, Hans am Ende, Fritz Overbeck and Heinrich Vogeler. Unquestionably the greatest artist in Worpswede was Paula Modersohn- Becker, whose sad fairytale world of rustic subjects cannot be defined within one style. Work by the founding members is on display in the Grobe Kunstschau and the Worpsweder Kunsthalle. Verden an der Aller, the picturesque bishops’ residence and once a free town of the Reich, is known to sports enthusiasts thanks to its horseracing tracks, training centres and stadiums, and the Deutsches Pferdemuseum (horse museum), with a large collection of equestrian artifacts. Seven horse auctions are held in the town each year, and the most important are in April and October.

Apart from horses, Verden an der Aller has a picturesque town centre with small houses, the Andreaskirche, a church with the famous brass tomb of bishop Yso, as well as the Johanniskirche with a rainbow- arched wall dating from the 18th century. Above the town rises the Dom with a large, steep roof.

The hall of this cathedral, a modification of earlier basilicas, is architecturally interesting, with a multi-sided presbytery, a passageway dating from 1268–1311 and Romanesque cloisters and a tower. North of the cathedral is the Domherrenhaus, housing the Historisches Museum, with exhibits on regional history and archaeological and ethnographic departments.