North American Chums

Lil and B are not Americans. They were, back when they first met at Woodstock in 1969, B using the awesome chat up line of "have you got any uppers?" However, a few years later they were Canadians, and now they're in Italy for a month and may even meet up with some distant relatives they didn't know they had down in Sicily. But yes, distinctly Canadian and keen to make the distinction, as had Thor, Monica and Matt back in Bremen. But regardless of their distinct North American identity, B and Lil are a lovely, chatty couple and we were very pleased our tiny table in the tiny Venetian Pleasure Cafe ("good things come in little packages") was pressed up next to their tiny table.

We had been equally pleased when we bumped into the International Student Brigade again on the shores of Lake Bled, having first met them up the top of the Ljubljana Castle the day before. Two of the Americans in their midst, Noah and Keith, promptly gave us their email addresses and told us to drop them a line if we fancied a trip to Trieste. Which we did, so a few days later we met up with both of them in Trieste's stunning Piazza Dell'Unita and were treated to a guided tour of the city plus a blagged pizza in the University Cafeteria.

Both Northern boys from up near the Canadian border (Keith from Montana, Noah from Vermont) they were full of enthusiasm for their new situation and stunned to find out how popular Americans are in Italy. (This may have had something to do with the fact that Trieste only remained Italian after World War Two thanks to the presence of Allied forces, otherwise the city - previously Venetian, then Hapsburg - might have been absorbed into Yugoslavia along with the rest of Istria.) We had a great evening hanging out with them and, depending on their travel plans, may very well end up seeing them again.

The Free Cities

Over the last couple of days we've visited the last two remaining free cities in Germany - Bremen and Hamburg. Both are essentially states with Federal Germany with their own Landtags (Parliaments) meaning that they enjoy the same status as huge states such as Bavaria or Saxony (Berlin also has it's own Landtag but for more recent historical reasons). In British terms that's kind of like giving Liverpool and Newcastle their own Parliaments with the same powers as the Welsh Assembly. The reasons for these cities retaining control over their own internal affairs is ancient, dating back to the origins of the Holy Roman Empire when the Free Cities were self-governing bodies that owed allegiance directly to the Emperor rather than local princes or bishops. By the time Napoleon abolished the Empire in 1806 there were only 6 remaining; now there are only two, Bremen and Hamburg, great port cities of the Hanseatic League. They are quite different.

Bremen, on the Weser, no longer seems to be much of a port, the river undoubtedly too narrow and shallow for modern shipping, but there was plenty going for it. We had a lovely time wandering around the beautiful old town square, chocolate box Schnoor district and a crazy Art Deco street, before befriending three Canadians (Matt, Monica and Thor) and sharing a few beers with them.

Hamburg, on the other hand, is very much a working Port, with the huge cranes the line the wide and choppy Elbe dominating the skyline as you approach on the autobahn alongside huge stacks of shipping containers. It's the richest city in Germany and my friend Franziska, currently living in another old Hanseatic Port, Kiel, has just landed a job there. Inviting us to tag along as she went flat-hunting we were introduced to the joys of speed-limit free autobahns as she bombed along in her Alfa Romeo at speeds of 160kph (100 english). The working nature of the city was evident in the throngs on the High Street, the huge (but attractive) brick warehouses and the Reeperbahn - the biggest red light district in Europe!