Liechtenstein, A Rags to Riches Story

Leaving Switzerland we missed one important turn that would have meant a significant detour and many extra kilometres if we hadn’t stopped and turned back and then we crossed the River Rhine and entered Liechtenstein with the minimum of fuss and no border controls.

Liechtenstein is the fourth smallest independent European state after the Vatican City, Monaco and San Marino and is closely aligned to Switzerland.  It is also the sixth smallest independent sovereign state in the World if you add Nauru and Tuvalu.  It is predominantly Germanic and the only German speaking state that does not have a national border with Germany itself.

It exists as a historical anomaly because when the Holy Roman Empire was abolished by Napoleon in 1806 everyone seemed to forget about this tiny Principality and the royal family were able to continue to exist as an independent state ever since and as such it is the only state in Europe with a remaining direct continuity with the thousand year old Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne.  It is one of only two countries in the world that are double landlocked (the other is Uzbekistan) as neither of its neighbours, Switzerland and Austria have access to the sea either.  It is therefore safe to say that fishing is probably not an important contributor to the economy in Liechtenstein.

We passed through the unremarkable state capitol of Vaduz with the castle of the ruling Prince, the Schloss Vaduz, perched high overhead and with magnificent views of all that he possesses stretched out below.  Prince Hans-Adam II enjoys the sort of power that Medieval Kings would recognise and very little can happen in Liechtenstein without his say so.  On 15^th September 1993 he dissolved Parliament and assumed control of Government and then insisted on a new constitution which recognised his supreme power and this was adopted by referendum in 2003.

We stayed overnight in Liechtenstein in the village of Triesenberg and when we left the next day we drove again through Vaduz which although looking overwhelmingly dull we felt compelled to stop there and take a quick look.  I don’t really know what I was expecting really, it just sounded as though it should be more interesting than it is, the very fact that it has been able to remain independent through two hundred turbulent years of European history should have given me a clue.  If none of its more powerful neighbours had taken a fancy to it or annexed it for themselves in all of that time that probably says a lot about its value or its interest.

In fact although it is regarded now as a wealthy country this hasn’t always been the case.  In the immediate aftermath of the Second-World-War the Prince of Liechtenstein even had to sell off family heirlooms to stay solvent but in response to this sorry state of affairs the economy of Liechtenstein was completely modernised and the advantage of low corporate tax rates attracted many foreign companies to the country.

These days the Prince of Liechtenstein is the world’s sixth wealthiest head of state, with an estimated wealth of three billion Euro and the residents of the country enjoy one of the world’s highest standards of living.  And that’s not bad for the world’s sixth smallest country!

Spalding/Speyer Town Twinning

Town Twinning became a big thing after the Second World War as people sought to repair relationships with their neighbours that they had fallen out with and I have often wondered what the process was for getting a twin town?

Perhaps it was like the draw for the third round of the FA cup when all the names go into a hat to be drawn out with each other, or perhaps it was like the UCAS University clearing house system where towns made their preferred selections and waited for performance results to see if they were successful; or perhaps it was a sort of dating service and introductory agency.

Anyway, the city of Coventry started it all off and was the first ever to twin when it made links with Stalingrad in the Soviet Union in 1944 and is now so addicted to twinning that it has easily the most of any English town or city with a massive twenty-six twins.  That is a lot of civic receptions and a lot of travelling expenses for the Mayor of Coventry.  Perhaps even more surprising is that Sherborne in Dorset, a town of only ten thousand residents has fifteen twin towns.

From 1975 to 1980 I worked at Rugby Borough Council and there was a strong Town Twinning Association with a regular group of Council bigwigs rotating biannually between visiting the twin town of Evreux in Normandy in France and then entertaining French visitors the following year.  In 1977 Rugby twinned with a second town, this time Russelheim in Germany, and this meant new people were required to fill the coaches and provide accommodation for visitors.  We expressed an interest in the Gallic option and in 1979 joined the twinners.

In the following year I changed jobs and moved away to Rugby and that put an end to Town Twinning for a while until over twenty years later in 2002.

Now I had moved to Spalding in Lincolnshire whose twin town is Speyer in Germany and responding to a crisis of too few hosts for an imminent visit I decided that it was time to start twinning again.  At this time I was sharing a rented house with a friend and work colleague, Barry Bradley, and the organizer thought it would be amusing to allocate a female visitor to stay with us.  Her name was Helga and I thought this all sounded rather promising…

The coach arrived at about six o’clock on 7th September and I optimistically looked out for a stunning blonde getting off the coach.  Well, the coach emptied and there was no sign of my guest and as people stared to drift away I wondered if she had bothered to come.  Finally the coach pulled away and there she was standing on the other side of the bus.  Oh My God!  My optimistic vision of a Bavarian stunner was cruelly dashed because Helga had more the look of an East German shot putter of dubious gender than a Black Forest beauty queen so I hurried her to the car and if I’d had one I would have put a blanket over her head to get her inside the house in case she scared the neighbours.

We got over the first night but in the morning she didn’t appear for breakfast so I had to leave her and go to work and return at lunch time to deliver her to the coach for an organized trip.  At tea time I took her back to the house to get ready for the civic reception but without warning she packed her bags and demanded to be taken into town to be closer to her friends.

It turned out that she was ragingly homophobic and she had jumped to hasty conclusions about the domestic arrangements.  There was no convincing her that Barry and I were just in a convenient house share arrangement and unable to dissuade her I had to make alternative arrangements for her, which brought my attempts at improving international relations to a shuddering halt.

So traumatic was this experience that I haven’t twinned again since.

A happier Town Twinning experience:

town-twinning-rugby-and-evreux

The Black Forest, Freiburg and the Schauinslandbahn

After leaving Gengenbach we followed the same road to Haslach and then took a route towards Elzach and Freiburg.  The road started to climb quickly and it began to snow just as we passed a road sign that seemed to suggest that it might be advisable to have snow chains ready for the tyres.  As the snow became heavier we could understand why but it wasn’t getting too deep and the winter tyres seemed to be coping well enough again but just to be sure we kept to the main road and didn’t head off any ambitious scenic detours.

And we really didn’t need to because this was a very attractive route anyway and we passed through the towns of Waldkirch, Denzlingen and Gundelfingen and eventually approached the outskirts of Freiburg where there was a series of road works and detours.  We drove straight through the city with a plan to come back later and continued south towards the one of the highest parts of the Black Forest, the Schauinsland, and once outside the city we started to climb once more.

Schauinsland literally translates as ‘look into the country’ and we now set off on a twelve kilometre climb to the top through a series of sharp twists and turns through hair pin bends and narrow gorges and as we climbed the temperature dropped to minus six, it started to snow and the road turned into a treacherous river of slush.  At one thousand, two hundred and ninety-five metres we reached the top and living in Lincolnshire that is about one thousand, three hundred metres higher than we are normally used to.  The top of the mountain was a place of winter pastimes and people were skiing down the slopes, children were sledging and families were walking together through the thick snow.  There were good views but the weather was getting worse and the snow even heavier and we were apprehensive about the drive back down so we didn’t stay too long.

We negotiated the snow and drove down the difficult road to the village of Horben and then decided to go back up again but by a different form of transport because from here it was possible to reach the summit on the Schauinslandbahn, which at just over three and half kilometres is the longest cable car ride in Germany (opened 17^th July 1930).  The return ticket cost €11.50 but it was well worth it because as we climbed through an avenue of snow covered conifers there were great views to the north-west all along the Rhine valley and into neighbouring France.

At the top once more it was snowing again and we emerged into a scene of pristine white snow, several centimetres deep, a crisp atmosphere that clawed at our fingers and toes and pure mountain air that filled our lungs and cleared our heads.  We walked for a while through trees weighed down heavily with snow, deep frozen and covered in frost and ice, along steep slippery paths where we had to watch our step as we walked all around the summit and then back to the cable car.

On the return cable car journey it was cold and draughty in the cabin but for compensation there were more magnificent views over the mountains and across to the city of Freiburg  which was where we were going next.

A Year in a Life – 3rd October, Germany Reunited

On 3^rd October 1990, East and West Germany are reunited, ending 45 years of Cold War division. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Germany was divided between the four major Allied powers; the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France. In 1949, the United States, Britain and France combined their occupation zones to create the Federal Republic of Germany in West Germany, while the Soviets established the communist German Democratic Republic in East Germany.  At midnight the Freedom Bell, a gift from the United States, was rung, and Germany was again a united nation. The East German state, which had essentially collapsed in 1989, was dissolved, and its people became citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.

At this time, and for some time after, I had never visited Germany but in 2007 I found cheap tickets to Friedrichshafen.  I really had no idea where this was and I really didn’t care, I was determined to have the flights so I booked them without giving the transaction a second thought.  After it had been confirmed I set out to discover where it was exactly and to learn something about our destination.  I was delighted to find that it was in the far south of Germany sitting alongside Lake Constance and within easy reach of Switzerland and Austria. 

When we arrived in Friedrichshafen the weather was perfect and the sun was shining and we quickly took a taxi to the city that drove us through some, quite frankly, uninteresting suburbs, and it was a lady taxi driver to take us there so there was nothing very exciting about the drive either as she took us to our hotel with a sedate efficiency. 

As it was about lunchtime we quickly organised ourselves and made our way out of the hotel and down to the lake to see what the city had to offer and we were absolutely delighted as the place immediately exceeded our modest expectations.  We had had no idea of what we might find so we were surprised to discover a broad sunny promenade with bars and restaurants overlooking the lake and a genuine holiday resort atmosphere. 

Lake Constance is a vast freshwater lake on the upper River Rhine situated between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria and is the third largest in central Europe after Lake Balaton which is in Hungary and the second largest Lake Geneva which lies between France and Switzerland. It is sixty-three kilometers long and one-hundred and eighty-six kilometers around, at its widest point it is nearly fourteen kilometers across and it covers approximately five-hundred and thirty-nine square kilometers of total area.  Ninety per cent of the water is melted floodwater from the Alps and this supplies three-hundred and twenty cities and towns and four million people with drinking water, so this is a very big lake indeed and it is fairly important to an awful lot of people. 

It is an interesting fact that there is no legally binding agreement as to where the boundaries lie between the three countries that border the shores of Lake Constance.  Switzerland holds the view that the border runs through the middle of the lake, whilst Austria is of the opinion that the lake stands in condominium of all the states on its banks. Germany agrees with neither of these points of view and doesn’t care too much anyway.  I expect they would get their own way if they really had a mind to.

We walked for a while along the sociable waterfront and before very long selected a table at a bar with an expansive view of the water and in the full glare of the midday sun.  This was a perfect spot for a lunchtime sojourn and we sat in the warm sun and looked out over the water towards the snow capped Swiss Alps.  The water was busy with ferry boats either crossing over to Switzerland or simply stopping off at all the little towns that border the lake so later we walked along the promenade to check the schedules for our planned trip to the other side of the water.  The timetables were even more difficult to understand than the menus so after quickly running out of patience we returned to the waterfront and walked back along the promenade past the zeppelin museum and with the afternoon sun still pleasantly hot we found another bar and sat and enjoyed another beer.   We sat and enjoyed the beer and the wine in the afternoon sun and watched the people walking back and forth along the lakeside boulevard stopping frequently to buy ice cream or to stop like us for refreshment in one of the many bars overlooking the lake.

Even on this our first day, I found that I was being forced into a reassessment of the German people.  Here in their own country they were so obliging and polite and not at all like the loud pushy archetypes that I had encountered before usually on holiday in Spain or Portugal where in the 1938 style of Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland they notoriously commandeer the best pool side seats.  I have to say that it was a real pleasure to be here and not really what I was expecting, it felt relaxed, refined and cultured and I was glad of that and to have my national prejudices so quickly readjusted.

A Life in a Year – 15th September, A Short Visit to Liechtenstein

Leaving Switzerland we missed one important turn that would have meant a significant detour and many extra kilometres if we hadn’t stopped and turned back and then we crossed the River Rhine and entered Liechtenstein with the minimum of fuss and no border controls.  Liechtenstein is the fourth smallest independent European state after the Vatican City, Monaco and San Marino and is closely aligned to Switzerland.  It is also the sixth smallest independent sovereign state in the World if you add Nauru and Tuvalu.  It is predominantly Germanic and the only German speaking state that does not have a national border with Germany itself. 

When the Holy Roman Empire was abolished by Napoleon in 1806 everyone seemed to forget about this tiny Principality and the royal family were able to continue to exist as an independent state ever since and as such it is the only state in Europe with a remaining direct continuity with the thousand year old Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne.  It is one of only two countries in the world that are double landlocked (the other is Uzbekistan) as neither of its neighbours, Switzerland and Austria have access to the sea either.  It is therefore safe to say that fishing is probably not an important contributor to the economy in Liechtenstein.

We passed through the unremarkable state capitol of Vaduz with the castle of the ruling Prince, the Schloss Vaduz, perched high overhead and with magnificent views of all that he possesses stretched out below.  Prince Hans-Adam II enjoys the sort of power that Medieval Kings would recognise and very little can happen in Liechtenstein without his say so. On 15^th September 1993 he dissolved Parliament and assumed control of Government and then insisted on a new constitution which recognised his supreme power and this was adopted by referendum in 2003.

We stayed overnight in Liechtenstein in the village of Triesenberg and when we left the next day we drove again through Vaduz which although looked overwhelmingly dull we felt compelled to stop there and take a quick look.  I don’t really know what I was expecting really, it just sounded as though it should be more interesting than it is, the very fact that it has been able to remain independent through two hundred turbulent years of European history should have given me a clue.  If none of its more powerful neighbours had taken a fancy to it or annexed it for themselves in all of that time that probably says a lot about its value or its interest.

In fact although it is regarded now as a wealthy country this hasn’t always been the case.  In the immediate aftermath of the Second-World-War the Prince of Liechtenstein even had to sell off family heirlooms to stay solvent but in response to this sorry state of affairs the economy of Lichtenstein was completely modernised and the advantage of low corporate tax rates attracted many foreign companies to the country.  These days the Prince of Liechtenstein is the world’s sixth wealthiest head of state, with an estimated wealth of three billion Euro and the residents of the country enjoy one of the world’s highest standards of living.  And that’s not bad for the world’s sixth smallest country!

A Life in a Year – 8th September, Spalding/Speyer Town Twinning

Town Twinning became a big thing after the Second World War as people sought to repair relationships with their neighbours and I have often wondered what the process was for getting a twin town. 

Perhaps it was like the draw for the third round of the FA cup when all the names go into a hat to be drawn out with each other, or perhaps it was like the UCAS University clearing house system where towns made their preferred selections and waited for performance results to see if they were successful; or perhaps it was a sort of dating service and introductory agency.

Anyway, the city of Coventry started it all off and was the first ever to twin when it made links with Stalingrad in the Soviet Union in 1944 and is now so addicted to twinning that it has easily the most of any English town or city with a massive twenty-six twins.  That is a lot of civic receptions and a lot of travelling expenses for the Mayor of Coventry.  Perhaps even more surprising is that Sherborne in Dorset, a town of only ten thousand residents has fifteen twin towns.

From 1975 to 1980 I worked at Rugby Borough Council and there was a strong Town Twinning Association with a regular group of Council bigwigs rotating biannually between visiting the twin town of Evreux in Normandy, France and then entertaining French visitors the following year.  In 1977 Rugby twinned with a second town, this time Russelheim in Germany, and this meant new people were required to fill the coaches and provide accommodation for visitors.  We expressed an interest in the Gallic option and in 1979 joined the twinners.

In the following year I changed jobs and moved away to Rugby and that put an end to Town Twinning for a while until over twenty years later in 2002.

Now I had moved to Spalding in Lincolnshire whose twin town is Speyer in Germany and responding to a crisis of too few hosts for an imminent visit I decided that it was time to start twinning again.  At this time I was sharing a rented house with a friend and work colleague, Barry Bradley, and the organizer thought it would be amusing to allocate a female visitor to stay with us.  Her name was Helga and I thought this all sounded rather promising…

The coach arrived at about six o’clock on 7th September and I optimistically looked out for a stunning blonde getting off the coach.  Well, the coach emptied and there was no sign of my guest and as people stared to drift away I wondered if she had bothered to come.  Finally the coach pulled away and there she was standing on the other side of the bus.  Oh My God!  My optimistic vision of a Bavarian stunner was cruelly dashed because Helga had more the look of an East German shot putter of dubious gender than a Black Forest beauty queen so I hurried her to the car and if I’d had one I would have put a blanket over her head to get her inside the house in case she scared the neighbours.

We got over the first night but in the morning she didn’t appear for breakfast so I had to leave her and go to work and return at lunch time to deliver her to the coach for an organized trip.  At tea time I took her back to the house to get ready for the civic reception but without warning she packed her bags and demanded to be taken into town to be closer to her friends.

It turned out that she was ragingly homophobic and she had jumped to hasty conclusions about the domestic arrangements.  There was no convincing her otherwise and unable to dissuade her I had to make alternative arrangements for her, which brought my attempts at improving international relations to a shuddering halt.  So traumatic was this experience that I haven’t twinned again since.

A happier Town Twinning experience:

town-twinning-rugby-and-evreux

A Life in a Year – 17th July, The Black Forest, Frieburg and the Schauinslandbahn

After leaving Gengenbach we followed the same road to Haslach and then took a route towards Elzach and Freiburg.  The road started to climb quickly and it began to snow just as we passed a road sign that seemed to suggest that it might be advisable to have snow chains ready for the tyres.  As the snow became heavier we could understand why but it wasn’t getting too deep and the winter tyres seemed to be coping well enough again but just to be sure we kept to the main road and didn’t head off any ambitious scenic detours.

And we really didn’t need to because this was a very attractive route anyway and we passed through the towns of Waldkirch, Denzlingen and Gundelfingen and eventually approached the outskirts of Freiburg where there was a series of road works and detours.  We drove straight through the city with a plan to come back later and continued south towards the one of the highest parts of the Black Forest, the Schauinsland, and once outside the city we started to climb once more.

Schauinsland literally translates as ‘look into the country’ and we now set off on a twelve kilometre climb to the top through a series of sharp twists and turns through hair pin bends and narrow gorges and as we climbed the temperature dropped to minus six, it started to snow and the road turned into a treacherous river of slush.  At one thousand, two hundred and ninety-five metres we reached the top and living in Lincolnshire that is about one thousand, three hundred metres higher than we are normally used to.  The top of the mountain was a place of winter pastimes and people were skiing down the slopes, children were sledging and families were walking together through the thick snow.  There were good views but the weather was getting worse and the snow even heavier and we were apprehensive about the drive back down so we didn’t stay too long.

We negotiated the snow and drove down the difficult road to the village of Horben and then decided to go back up again but by a different form of transport because from here it was possible to reach the summit on the Schauinslandbahn, which at just over three and half kilometres is the longest cable car ride in Germany (opened 17^th July 1930).  The return ticket cost €11.50 but it was well worth it because as we climbed through an avenue of snow covered conifers there were great views to the north-west all along the Rhine valley and into neighbouring France.

At the top once more it was snowing again and we emerged into a scene of pristine white snow, several centimetres deep, a crisp atmosphere that clawed at our fingers and toes and pure mountain air that filled our lungs and cleared our heads.  We walked for a while through trees weighed down heavily with snow, deep frozen and covered in frost and ice, along steep slippery paths where we had to watch our step as we walked all around the summit and then back to the cable car. 

On the return cable car journey it was cold and draughty in the cabin but for compensation there were more magnificent views over the mountains and across to the city of Freiburg which was where we were going next.

A Life in a Year – 28th May, A Bonding Holiday with my Daughter

As Sally had recently broken the news about having a baby I thought it would be a good idea to have a last bonding holiday together as father and daughter before the big event as it is going to be a long time before we get this opportunity again.  I was straight to http://www.ryaniar.com and I quickly located cheap flights to Germany for 28^th May.

I really had no idea where Friedrichshafen was and I really didn’t care, I was determined to have the flights so I booked them without giving the transaction a second thought.  After it had been confirmed I set out to discover where it was exactly and to learn something about our destination.  I was delighted to find that it is in the far southwest of Germany sitting alongside Lake Constance and within easy reach of its neighbours Switzerland and Austria and I quickly realised that here was a trip where I could pull in some extra countries in my quest to visit as much of Europe as possible using the low cost airlines to get me there.  After consulting the guidebooks and planning a suitable itinerary the final plan was to fly to Friedrichshafen then drive to Switzerland and visit Liechtenstein as well.

We arrived in Germany at three o’clock in the afternoon and picked up the hire car with a minimum of fuss and drove directly to the city to find the hotel Schöllhorn, which wasn’t as straightforward as it should have been but eventually we found it at the third attempt and checked in.  The hotel was a grand building in a good position with front rooms overlooking the lake but as I had booked a budget room ours had an alternative view over the car park at the back but this didn’t matter because as it was mid afternoon already we quickly organised ourselves and made our way out of the hotel and down to the lake to see what the city had to offer.

We walked for a while along the friendly waterfront and before very long selected a table at a bar with an expansive view of the water stretching across to Switzerland.  Not that we could see Switzerland however because there was a strange mist that hung over the curiously dead calm water that rather spoilt the view of the Alps in the distance.  A glance at the menu confirmed my excellent judgement in earlier purchasing a German phrase book at the airport because the menu interpretation looked especially tricky with very few words that meant anything to me.

This was a perfect spot for an afternoon sojourn and we sat and watched the lake that was busy with ferry boats crossing over to Switzerland or simply stopping off at all the little towns that border the lake and we sat and practised German fom the phrasebook and Sally impressed me with her natural grasp of the language.  Later we walked along the promenade to check the schedules for our planned trip to the other side of the water the next day.

Even on this our first day, I found that I was being forced into a reassessment of the German people.  Here in their own country they were so obliging and polite   and not at all like the loud pushy archetypes that I had encountered before, usually on holiday in Spain or Portugal where in the 1938 style of Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland they notoriously commandeer the best pool side seats.  I have to say that it was a real pleasure to be here and not really what I was expecting, it felt relaxed, refined and cultured and I was glad of that and to have my national prejudices so quickly readjusted.

After our drink it was time for food so we returned to the lakeside and not feeling especially adventurous found an Italian restaurant with a good menu and some vegetarian options for Sally.  We were a little perplexed however when the place started to close down around us and the staff dragged buckets of water from the lake to fill the plant pots and to start to chain the tables and chairs down.  When the lights went out we felt uncomfortably in the way so we finished our drinks, paid and sauntered back into the city.  It was a lovely evening and the sky was beginning to clear and there was the occasional glimpse of a star or two and that made us optimistic about tomorrow and we returned to the Schöllhorn and as it had been a long day we went straight to bed and to sleep.

A Life in a Year – 12th April, Winter Tyres

It took only fifty-five minutes to fly the short distance and land at Kahlrsrue-Baden Airpark at nine-thirty in the evening and after quickly clearing immigration and customs we were soon at the car hire desk to pick up our hire car.  There was a pleasant young man on duty called Herr Schmidberger and he examined my hire details and then sighed and furrowed his brow and adopted a concerned demeanour, “You have a booking for a vehicle without the winter tyres” he said, “are you sure you want a car without the winter tyres?”  I had no idea what he was talking about and must have given him my best blank expression because with that he rolled his eyes so far back into their sockets that if had laser vision he would have fried his brains.  The winter tyres were an extra €55 and I was beginning to detect a well rehearsed scam so we took a while to consult with each other on the proposal of paying the extra and this started to test his patience.

I enquired why I might consider going to the unnecessary additional expense and although this was his opportunity to inform me that since May 2006 German motorists have been required by law to use the most appropriate tyres for the weather conditions and that driving on snow covered roads is permitted only if a car is equipped with winter tyres, instead he became even more theatrical and speaking in that clipped precise sort of way that Germans do when speaking English said “Look at the snow, you can see the snow, in just two minutes you can see the snow!”  Obviously I could see the snow but I still failed to understand why he was so insistent (unless it was a scam).  He could have told me that in Germany motorists are obliged to make sure they have correct tyres to suit the winter weather conditions and if a vehicle becomes stuck because the tyres are unsuitable drivers are liable to an on the spot fine, and further more if the vehicle causes an obstruction or aggravation to other traffic, the fine may be doubled.  Instead he gave a look that suggested that I was the craziest customer that he had ever dealt with and that driving without winter tyres in snow was madder than wrestling with alligators, swimming in shark infested waters or sky-diving without a parachute.

I asked about the weather forecast and whether he thought it might be snowing in the Black Forest (which at over a thousand metres was an absolute certainty and a really dumb question) and then his eyes started to swivel from side to side like the symbols on a fruit machine and he was clearly losing his patience with me now.  He might have explained that winter tyres use a tread rubber compound and block pattern specifically designed to retain flexibility in low temperatures and give good braking and traction performance on snow and ice covered roads but instead he just keep shrieking “Look at the snow, you can see the snow, in just two minutes you can see the snow!”  By now we were beginning to understand that he thought snow tyres were a very good idea so finally agreed to the additional charge and he immediately calmed down and set about allocating us an appropriate vehicle for the conditions.

After that he went through the booking and paying procedures, explained where we would find the car in the car park and then clearly lacking any sort of confidence in my snow driving abilities and not expecting to see the car again in one piece bade us farewell with the words “please be sure to drive carefully in the snow, it is very dangerous…”

We quickly found the bright blue Nissan Micra hidden under a blanket of snow, cleaned it down, examined the tyres which, at this time not understanding about the special rubber compound looked quite normal to me and fairly soon after setting off I was certain we had been scammed.  And we had been of course because at €13.45 a day I calculate that if they are on the car for a third of the year that is an extra €1,600 or €400 a tyre and I cannot believe that they can be that much more expensive than a regular tyre.  And of course they are not because I have checked and they can be bought for as little as €40 each.

Car hire firms got away with this because actually winter tyres weren’t compulsory only advisory and left to the driver’s discretion.  Happy to take the risk, then take the risk.  On 12^th April 2010 however they were made compulsory so I was surprised when I returned to the same airport in February 2011 and found the robbing car hire companies still charging extra for what is now a legal requirement.

A Life in a Year – 4th March, First Flight of Airship LZ 129 Hindenburg

On 4^th March 1936 the Airship LZ 129 Hindenburg made its first successful flight from Freidrichshafen in south west Germany.  The Hindenburg was a large German commercial passenger-carrying rigid airship, the lead ship of the Hindenburg class, at 245 metres the longest class of flying machines of any kind and the largest airship by envelope volume (200,000 m³, 7,062,000 cubic feet).  It was designed and built by the Zeppelin Company (Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH) on the shores of the Bodensee (Lake Constance) and flew from March 1936 until destroyed by fire fourteen months later on May 6^th 1937, at the end of the first North American transatlantic journey of its second season of service. Thirty-six people died in the accident, which occurred while landing at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey.

I went to Friedrichshafen in May 2008 and visited the Zeppelin museum, which is just about the most famous thing about Friedrichshafen, because this is where the airship was pioneered and developed.  Airships are a type of rigid hot air balloon pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century, and so successful was the Count’s design that all airships subsequently became referred to as zeppelins, even if they weren’t (a bit like vacuum cleaners all being called Hoover!)

Zeppelin was born in Konstanz, on the other side of the lake and in 1898 he founded the ‘Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Luftschiffahrt’ or the company for the promotion of airship flight, and construction of the first Zeppelin began in Friedrichshafen in 1899 which enjoyed a perfect location for launching the airships.  The first Zeppelin flight took place in July, 1900 over Lake Constance and lasted for eighteen minutes.

The most important feature of Zeppelin’s design was a rigid metal alloy skeleton, made of rings and longitudinal girders. The advantage of this concept was that they could be built much larger than a conventional balloon which meant they were more useful for transporting people or commecial goods and they became great ships of the sky even making transatlantic crossings in the 1930’s.  But they were inherently dangerous as they relied upon the highly combustible gas helium to keep them afloat and on May 6, 1937, in front of thousands of spectators in New Jersey, USA, the biggest aircraft ever made, the airship Hindenburg caught fire, and within seconds burst into flames killing thirty-five of the ninety-seven people on board.   The actual cause of the spark that caused the explosion was never identified but it is a bizarre fact that the airship actually had a smoking room in the passenger compartment.  OK, it was lined with asbestos and the lighter was chained to the floor and there was a guard permanently on duty but it still sounds a bit reckless to me.  This disaster was the end for great airships and the Zeppelin Company in Friedrichshafen.

There are still Zeppelins flying from Friedrichshafen and we could see tourist flights taking off from the airport for a flight over the city and the lake and across to Switzerland.  If there had been time I think I might have been persuaded to take the trip but bearing in mind the Hindenburg story and the fact that the museum had a whole room devoted to photographs of airship disasters we weren’t terribly keen.