Did somebody say Zeppelin?

So, how many people get to start their morning with a 45 minute pleasure cruise over Germany’s largest lake and the Swiss Alps in a zeppelin?  That’s just what we were thinking this morning as we embarked on one of the most unique adventures of the trip.  This ain’t your grandpa’s zeppelin, filled with highly flammable hydrogen, it’s a helium filled pleasure craft that dreams are made of!  The experience began as we entered the check-in station of the most luxurious airport we had ever seen, then waiting for our flight in the restaurant/lounge area before getting a safety talk and shuttle to the landing zone.  The zeppelin (a blimp for those of you in the United States) comes in for a landing, hovers just above the ground with the stairway extended from the passenger cabin, the passengers embark and disembark the moving target as it hovers, then the door is fastened and off we go!  It was amazing!

Zeppelin landing

Inside the passenger cabin of a Zeppelin

View from the Zeppelin

The entire thing was such a surreal experience.  The ride was so smooth at an elevation of 1000 feet above the ground.  The cabin holds 14 passengers plus a pilot and a stewardess and has room for passengers to move about and take pictures from any direction.  Rufus got all excited on the zeppelin thinking this was the way we were getting back to Kansas but we had to explain to him that was not the case.  The only way he could be consoled was through the comforting embrace of the stewardess, Annika.  Rufus was fine after that and just enjoyed the scenery.

Our flight was so scenic and smooth.  It was hard to believe we were floating along the Alps and over the countryside of both Germany and Switzerland.  Who would have believed this was even possible?  This service has just been available again in Germany for the past 20 years but the German zeppelin program dates all the way back to the late 1800’s and was prominent during both world wars.  Friedrichshafen was the central location for the research and development of those zeppelins and received debilitating bombardment from the Allies during World War II as a result.  Those days are long gone but the zeppelins fly again in this historic locale.  What an amazing opportunity we had today!