July 5, 2024
Day in Friedrichshafen
Buses and Blimps
We start the day earlyish with a walk to the nearby banhof. An announcement that there are nach trains, today. They are kaput. There is a bus though, and soon it’s whisking us down to the Zeppelin Museum, an Art Deco style building as befits the 1930s period.
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The fascination of the Zeppelin story, is partly in the aspirations and dreams of men like Graf Zeppelin and Hugo Eckener, manager of the Zeppelin development, and also in the way engineering and political challenges were overcome. Most of all, it’s a human story, involving some larger than life personalities. There were also economic problems that were overcome in part by public donations, such was the popularity of the project. We enjoyed the museum very much, but had I not recently read a book about the Zeppelin story, I might not have gained as much from the visit. I also wonder why the museum hasn’t mocked up a full sized interior of the Zeppelin’s passenger quarters. There is a small scale model but … For all that, there’s plenty to interest.
Later we take a walk around the waterfront area and find a quiet spot for lunch. As we sit, the current ‘Zeppelin’ blimp sails overhead, stately and slow. If only Helium had been affordable and made available by the Americans in the 1930s.
We find the bus and take the ride ‘home’, picking up some dinner on the way. From the window of our room we look out over the lake on a fine evening. It’s easy to imagine the Zeppelin back in the halcyon days of the 1930s, doing a sedate test ride on such an evening.
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