The name is Low German for “string”, because the houses sit along the lanes like beads on one: 15th- and 16th-century fishermen’s and craftsmen’s homes, small, slightly crooked, leaning towards each other over passages with room for two umbrellas at most. It is the oldest part of Bremen and a few minutes from the busy centre, now filled with craft workshops, galleries, patisseries, a tiny theatre and the Geschichtenhaus museum. The right plan is no plan — take every alley that looks too narrow to be useful.