My train is leaving early in the morning, through Sweden, southward. Outside the train window, early morning fog is lifting from the countryside.

Train Tip: The train between Copenhagen and Hamburg crosses the sea by ferry at one point. You’ll spend the 45 minute trip on the ferry’s deck, outside of the train. But be sure to get back on the train as the ferry is approaching the port. The train is one of the first vehicles to leave from the ferry, and finding your way back down to the train from the upper decks may take several minutes. I saw several passengers running to jump on the train as it was preparing to drive off the ferry.

The train meanders up close to farmlands and cows, proving a great trip for at least two senses (sight and smell), and sometimes for a third (hearing), as an occasional ‘MOO’ can be heard.

Train Tip: Consider NOT buying a bed reservation in advance. In the summer season, on weekends, and holidays, it’s a MUST if you want to be sure to get a bed. But one of the joys of traveling off-season, during the week, is that you can hop on and off trains, including night trains, more freely. During these non-peak times, I have found it’s more comfortable to walk on and buy the bed reservation on the train, because the conductor will often put you into an un-occupied sleeping cabin, whereas the computers at the train station will often automatically place you into free beds without consideration of how many people may already be in the sleeping cabin.

Today, more than 120 samba groups from neighboring countries make Bremen their destination in the weekend before the traditional Carnival celebrations. The organizers know that they can not compete with the likes of the big area carnivals such as Koln, so they move their date each year to a different weekend, and in doing, have turned Bremen’s Carnival into one of the largest Samba festivals in Europe, offering a weekend of high-adrenaline samba nights and a Saturday theater performance on the Marktplatz that is incredibly creative.

I meet a group of 16 year olds from Whitten, Germany, named Barulheiros who traveled to Bremen for the first time to play at Bremen carnival. They started playing Samba music at the age of six, inspired by a local priest who served in Brazil for six years and encouraged them to practice samba in his church. Other groups come from Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland, all drawn to samba culture.

Besides the samba parties on Friday and Saturday nights, there is an elaborate free stage production in the Marktplatz on Saturday afternoon. School children make costumes to act out the annual theme. This year it is “Land Underwater.”
The production tells the story of humans forced to live underwater with sea animals because of environmental changes, and, in a nod to the financial crisis, the degree to which humans will claim responsibility for their actions. “Each person says it’s others, not them, who is responsible for the financial crisis,” Martin, one of the organizers tells me. “But then each person says they want a new car, a bigger house, the newest mobile phone.”

Shopping bags fly through the air during the production, symbolizing consumerism, and the how consumerism leads to pollution. The theme wasn’t incorporated last year, Martin says, because a year ago “we in Germany weren’t yet fully understanding the financial crisis, but this year we are.”

It’s an elaborate free outdoor production that has helped Bremen’s carnival grow, all started twenty five years ago by a group of individuals with different artistic backgrounds coming together to perform. It’s a story that would make the Bremen Town Musicians proud.

Bremen is not a small village, nor a large city, with a population near half a million, the 10th largest city in Germany. (“Bremen is a village with a tram,” one man tells me this afternoon.)

So it is easy, and entertaining, to walk around. On this winter day, the windmill which houses a café stands guard in the town center, and still, in the chilly air.

As does the statue of Roland, one of the largest in Germany, built in 1404, purposely facing the large church to tell the bishops that the townspeople did not approve of the church’s monopolizing power. “It’s our Statue of Liberty,” I’m told, affectionately referring to this 5.5 meter (18 feet) tall statue that helped the Marktplatz square receive UNESCO’s recognition as one of the world’s oldest places symbolizing freedom.

Built at the same time across the square is the Town Hall. Its Gothic style is impressive, but what I found more impressive is the restaurant and wine cellar underneath the town hall. It is the size of seven football fields, the largest in Germany, and is larger than the town hall above. (“The wine cellar is never far from the politicians,” one man tells me inside.) While much of Bremen was destroyed by bombing in WWII, the town hall survived, in part because of the heroics of watchmen who literally carried fallen bombs outside of the building.

Another area surprisingly preserved and restored after WWII is a short walk away from the Marktplatz, toward the Weser River, in the Schnoor district. The name derives from the German word for string, as though the closely-built houses here are strung together likes pearls on a string. The area is charming, if small, and features a number of local artists. Built in the 13th century, the inhabitants of Schnoor were mostly river fishermen, who purposely wanted small houses because the property tax rate was equivalent to the size of one’s home.

One of my favorite stories to be found in Bremen, however, is at a small museum in the inner town: Museum im Roselius-Haus. Ludwig Roselius bought this house and turned it into a museum, as he was a great lover of the arts. But his fortune was built from sadness: his father had been a coffee merchant, and died at the age of 51 from “too much coffee,” as the doctors decreed. Roselius was determined to find a “safer” way to drink coffee, and developed a process of separating the caffeine from the coffee bean or, decaf coffee. Roselius’ invention became so wildly successful that at one time he held the sole contract of decaf coffee to 51 countries in the early 20th century. The museum that stands here today is a bit disappointing: it offers no relics of this coffee adventure, but rather is a collection of art that Roselius amassed. You can simply walk along Bottcherstrabe street to get a sense of the buildings that Roselius helped develop with his de-jittering fortune.

It’s one more tale in a city seemingly inspired by stories.

Indeed, I had forgotten my suitcase on the train, and they had found it while cleaning the train. The only thing stolen from me this morning were my brain cells. Stolen from a heavy dose of melatonin.

I’m now feeling the buzz of the coffee from the café, replacing the sedate morning feeling after the melatonin I took on the train the night before. I go back to the café, and ask to see the footage from their video monitors around their café. The result? The suitcase was never in my hands at the café.

I go back to the police inside the train station, and share this information with me. I ask them to look at their video footage of people departing the night train and going up the escalator toward the café, as I had done. I am sure that the police had more important things to be doing, but to their credit, they search their video footage. The result? As I ride the escalator after getting off the train, the suitcase is not in my hands. That means…the suitcase never left the train with me. The melatonin the night before had made me sleep more than I give it credit for…

Wander up into the hills onto the cobblestone streets, and you’ll find a small Christmas market between the towering church and royal residence in the old town center of Berchtesgaden.

This market may be one of the smaller markets I’ve visited, but it is as ideal as any: intimate, with local food and craftspeople, a large tree in the square and musicians performing regularly through the afternoon.

At 3pm each day in the week leading up to Christmas, the region erupts in gunfire, as townspeople continue the winter tradition of shooting into the sky.

Some say it is to let the approaching Christ child know where good children live, others say it is to scare off evil winter spirits.

And in the snowy hilltops above Berchtesgaden, I am invited to a Christmas Eve tradition from hundreds of years ago.

Loud bells begin clanking from the forest, as St. Nicholas and a gaggle of Krampus appear. They run through the village of 400, alternately greeting the inhabitants of each house, and whipping them with a special forest whip. (And hard, it hurts!)

The Krampus creatures scare the children to be good in the new year, and St. Nicholas rewards all of those who have been good in the past year. They must have thought I had been somewhere between good and bad this year, because they presented me with my own special forest whip. Probably it’s my favorite gift this Christmas.

It is part of a unique Christmas tradition on a continent that originated so many Christmas traditions centuries ago. A fitting place to find myself on these Christmas days, after a season of adventure and wonder.

The morning market outside of the Freiburg Cathedral is a throwback to centuries past.

The Cathedral itself is worth a visit, showcasing stained glass from the 13th to 16th centuries, as well as intricate carvings that told stories to parishioners who could not read.

Two places to stop by: Zum Roten Baren is Germany’s oldest inn. (Oberlinden 12) Both the food and atmosphere are excellent and traditional. At the Hausbrauerei Feierling, you can sit inside the brewery sampling the house beer, sold nowhere else.

Dortmund’s Christmas Market features the largest tree in Europe and perhaps the world.

Although I find this distinction misguiding, since it is really not one tree, but rather, 1,700 individual trees tied together. The number is daunting as you look at it.

I gaze in awe, the awe broken by a German friend adding, “That’s a waste of trees.” I wonder if an artificial tree could be created that big?

There’s a German sing-along concert the night that I am there. I joke that there is a German Christmas song that I know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLIo50zyAk&feature=related

Ok, so it’s not a classic, but I’m trying…