The best city hikes and walks in Werderland

The Strandlust restaurant has been demolished.

The Spicarium is a beautiful museum at the Old Vegesack Harbor.

Very nice, well-maintained playground.

The actual signal station is the mast on the station, where in earlier times, before radio and radar existed, the water level was shown to passing ships using balls and cones. At night, the water level was shown using light signals. The signal station had originally been located at the head of Vegesack Harbor since 1888, where the Lürssen shipyard administration building stands. As part of the widening of the harbor entrance in the 1950s, the station had to be removed and was given its current location. In 1989, operations ceased and when it was due to be demolished, the MTV Nautilus association successfully tried to preserve it, so that the station was handed over to the association in 1995. Now, after around 10 years of planning, the station has been spruced up, expanded to include information boards and media, and the four water levels of Bremen (Weser Bridge), Vegesack, Brake and Bremerhaven are now open to visitors.

A nice little highlight from the second to last ice age (Saale Ice Age) when this boulder was transported from Scandinavia to Vegesack by the ice stream. There are many such boulders in the Geest regions in and around Bremen, but this one is a rarity in this size.

This experimental sea rescue cruiser of the DGzRS (German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People) was the first of its kind in the world. It is characterized by the fact that it could right itself at any time and that it carried a daughter boat piggyback, which could be launched via a rear hatch. The cruiser was to be twice as fast as the previous motor lifeboats, be able to travel at relatively high speeds even in heavy seas, be seaworthy indefinitely and be able to be used in shallow water areas without any problems. These characteristics are still fundamental characteristics of the DGzRS ships today. The cruiser was taken out of service in 1965. The first sea rescue cruiser (SRK or internally SK) based on these characteristics and put into regular service in 1957 was the THEODOR HEUSS, which is now in the German Museum in Munich. Even today, an SRK Bremen with a daughter boat Vegesack still sails for the DGzRS and is stationed on the Baltic coast near the Fehmarnsund in Grossenbrode.

The nucleus of today's city garden was created in 1790 on the slope of the High Bank. Here, the Vegesack country physician and botanist Albrecht Wilhelm Roth created the "Botanical Garden of A.W. Roth" ("Hortulus Botanicus A.W. Rothii"). Here he planted more than 600 species of trees and shrubs in pots, which he sourced from all over the world. From 1923 onwards, the city of Vegesack gradually acquired plots of land on the high bank, which was necessary until 2000 to achieve the current size of the city garden. At first there was a Weser beach between the gardens and the Weser with swimming facilities (I was able to experience this myself) until 1970, when the Weser had to be deepened and the beach had to make way for a sheet pile wall. As compensation, the people of Vegesack received their Weser promenade, which can be seen as part of the city garden. The city garden now stretches from the stately homes on the high bank on Weserstrasse right to the water and in front of the Vegesack - Lemwerder ferry to the former shipyard at the level of the now elevated Weser tugboat Regina. At the eastern end, directly adjacent to the ferry dock, the "excursion establishment" Strandlust was built in 1898, which was a restaurant, hotel and entertainment venue for Vegesack residents until the 21st century. The modern city garden is crossed by two parallel paths (the path near the Weser is the so-called Weser promenade), with numerous smaller paths leading through the plant world with its currently around 180 plant species from all over the world (Mongolian steppe maple, tree of heaven, copper serviceberry, gingerbread cake tree and many others). These paths lead partly up the high bank via flights of stairs to the stately homes, of which Villa Fritze is one of the most lavish and famous buildings, not least because the villa was most recently home to the Vegesack local authority and the Bremen-Nord registry office. In the city garden there is the opportunity for sports and games and numerous events are also attended by the local population every year.

The whale in Vegesack is not only meant to remind us of the whaling era in Vegesack, but also to show that porpoises (which look similar to dolphins) with a length of up to 2 metres often swim far into the Weser and the Elbe as far as Hamburg. In 1669, a minke whale measuring almost 9 metres long got lost in the Weser and then further into the Lesum near Vegesack. The skeleton of this minke whale now hangs in the Overseas Museum in Bremen City, and a life-size picture is in the upper hall of the town hall. The bronze whale in the pedestrian zone is often used by children as a mount - who can say they have ridden a whale?