Day 198: Thursday 2 October – Germany: Friedrichshafen, by Ken

It was grey, dreary and overcast first thing at Starnberger See, but it was reasonably warm and it wasn’t raining.

At 7:00 I took Smarty and parked outside the camping ground owner’s house and logged onto wi-fi. It was painfully slow but I managed to transfer money to Ella as our share of Harry’s birthday present and download my email. There was one from Clemente at Dwarka resort apologizing for the delay in replying, but no mention of the incorrect banking details he had given me, just “let’s not try the bank transfer” and “sorry for your loss” – a reference to less money being returned from Goa than was sent from New Zealand. He suggested Paypall but wanted 5% to cover their charges. I replied I was already out of pocket because of the failed telegraphic transfer and wasn’t prepared to pay the 5%. While I was sitting in Smarty the friendly woman camping ground owner came out to see how I was and we had a brief conversation in German. She really was a lovely person.

While Mabel has an electronic display of engine oil level it is sensitive to how level Mabel is parked. I had been doing a visual check every now and again. It was time to do another today and found she needed half a litre. That’s a whole litre she had used in 13,000km. We prepared Mabel and Smarty for the road and after showering I went over to pay for our stay. I received a warm goodbye and best wishes for a safe journey.

Initially, our trip took us cross-country, it became murkier as we travelled and distinctly misty as we climbed. At 740 metres above sea level we were virtually in cloud. We passed through lots of small towns and villages, they all looked very neat and tidy.

Murky Day

While our destination of Friedrichshafen was slightly south of due west from Starnberger See satnav took us north west to Landsberg where we joined an autobahn and then turned south west almost all the way to the Bodensee. The weather slowly improved during the course of the morning such that the sun was shining by the time we left the autobahn and travelled north west parallel to Bodensee.

Passing through Friedrichshafen we saw a small airship overhead. We knew from our guidebook that it was possible to take a trip in an airship that could carry up to 12 passengers. Jane suggested I should do that as a late birthday present. At €200 for a 30 minute flight, I thought that rather extravagant and suggested visits to the Zeppelin and Dornier museums in the town would be more than adequate. 

Airship Over Friedrichshafen

There was a momentary glitch in our navigation as satnav had us turn into a narrow residential road announcing we had reached our destination in Fischbach a few kilometres north west of Friedrichshafen. Fortunately, we got ourselves back to a main road without having to unhitch Smarty and found Campingplatz Fischbach a few hundred metres down the road.

We found ourselves a good pitch facing the very large Bodensee. We knew Switzerland was over the horizon, but we couldn’t see it.

After lunch of bread, dips and cheese we drove Smarty into Friedrichshafen. After very nearly finding ourselves in the queue for the ferry to Switzerland we found a car park from where we walked a short distance to the Zeppelin Museum.

Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was 52 when he left the army in 1890. Instead of moving on to a peaceful retirement he became interested in building a large airship for transporting heavy loads over long distances. With financial support from King William II who also provided land for Zeppelin’s project, and a significant investment of his own and wife’s money Zeppelin built his first airship being in a floating hangar on Bodensee. It was launched in 1900 but then scrapped due to a shortage of funds.

Zeppelin was subsequently able to raise the funds to build three more airships. Recognising the military as the best source of permanent funding Zeppelin embarked on a 24 hour trial flight to prove his fourth craft (LZ 4) was suitable for military use. Unfortunately, nearing the end of the trial LZ 4 was forced to land at Echterdingen in a storm and the airship was destroyed by fire. In what later became known as the ‘miracle of Echterdingen the German people rallied around and donated millions to enable Zeppelin to continue his work.

Zeppelin died in 1917 having diversified into constructing large bombers deployed over England in 1917 and giant seaplanes – built under the direction of Claude Dornier.

A reconstruction of part of the starboard side of the Hindenberg, named after Paul von Hindenberg, president of the German Reich was the main feature of the museum. .It represented just a small proportion of the passenger accommodation. Ascending a flight of steps took us into the passenger area of the craft with cabins not unlike those we had used on our overnight ferry crossings with separate toilet facilities. There were no showers or baths, but perhaps these were considered unnecessary for the relatively short flights. Above the cabins was the promenade deck with angled windows allowing passengers to see downwards. Adjacent to the promenade deck was the dining area, bar and reading room.

The reconstruction occupied half the width of the craft, the other half was occupied by displays illustrating life on board. Something I hadn’t appreciated was crew numbers equaled, or slightly outnumbered passengers. The Hindenberg could carry 50 passengers and required a crew of 50 to 60 working in three shifts. Photographs showing the crew at work illustrated how similar the airship was to a sea going vessel. It was steered by a large ‘ships wheel’ and the engine telegraph was identical to that of a ship. There were shots of riggers working on the outside of the envelope while the airship was in flight and crewmen scaling external ladders to reach the engine nacelles where they tended the engines.

Here's some shots taken inside the reconstruction:

Dining Room

Observation Deck

Reading Room

Cabin

Riggers At Work

A lot of display space was devoted to the accident at Lakehurst on 6 May 1937 when a fire broke out near the upper tail fin bringing the airship to the ground in flames in half a minute. 36 people died – 13 passengers, 22 crew and a member of the ground team. 62 survived including 23 passengers. In less than a minute the Hindenberg had gone from symbolising the future of air travel to signaling the end of commercial airships.

Hindenberg Engine Nacelle

Officer's Jacket

There are conflicting views as to the cause of the accident with a spark igniting a mixture of leaking hydrogen and air – a thunderstorm had delayed the airships arrival. However, alternative theories including sabotage have been put forward.

Outside the reconstruction a floor contained lots of photographs as well as equipment fromairships. A walkway took us around the reconstruction such that we were inside the body of the Hindenberg where we could see its aluminium frame and water tanks. It was all very interesting and informative.

Hindenberg Reconstructed Frame and Water Tanks

Oddly, the top floor of the museum is an art gallery featuring regional art from Gothic to modern. A gallery contained a very strange exhibition with the envelope of a small airship lying deflated on the floor with computer generated videos of a swarm of airships floating over Venice, one of them wedged between houses on either side of a canal. We had no idea what that was about. It seemed they had built the museum to celebrate Friedrichshafen’s famous son and found they had a floor left over and had to fill it somehow.

From the museum we visited an enormous supermarket nearby housed on two floors. The fresh food on display was excellent, vegetables seemingly having been polished before being put on display. The cheese and sausage counter just went on for ever.

Just Part Of The Supermarket