Porcelain bells on Böttcherstraße in Bremen

Vintage Bremen postcard: large 'Greetings from Bremen, Germany' letters filled with city scenes and circular portraits of statues and storefronts under a beige background.

Bremen starts underfoot. Brick, and a river that still smells faintly of mud and coffee when the wind comes off the Weser. Most people aim for the Marktplatz first — Roland, the Rathaus, the bronze musicians stacked on each other’s backs — and that is fine for twenty minutes. The city I come back for … Read more

Needle and shuttle at the Schaustickerei in Plauen

Vintage postcard saying 'Greetings from Plauen, Germany,' with circular photos of landmarks surrounding a central town hall building.

Most Sachsen itineraries stop at Dresden porcelain and Leipzig canals. Plauen sits farther southwest in the Vogtland — a lace town that still smells of machine oil if you show up when the hall is running. I start at the Schaustickerei on Obstgartenweg, a 1902 stickerei complex in Reusa where the old embroidery machines still … Read more