When looking at historic routes across the Alps it is interesting to contrast it with modern trans-alpine traffic. What are the top 5 routes across the Alps today? Here it is worth noting that we have road and rail routes today. Even if they often run in parallel, there are interesting exceptions. Let’s look at …
Göschenen is a small village in the Reuss Valley of central Switzerland. Here, at a height of 1,100 m, the Gotthard railway line and the Gotthard motorway disappear into their tunnels. They take with them most of the traffic. The old Gotthard road heads now into an imposing narrow gorge that it somehow needs to …
Starting an adventure on your own doorstep is something very exciting. With my Via Regia project I was able to do just that. As a warm-up to the Frankfurt to Leipzig route, I walked through the Rhine-Main agglomeration from Mainz to Frankfurt in search of an old long-distance trade route. The Old Mainz to Frankfurt …
Amsterdam is known for its canals. The network of these artificial waterways is a part of the special appeal that this cosmopolitan city has. But what is the story behind the Amsterdam Canals? When you look at the map of Amsterdam you notice a ring of concentric canals around the city center. The large scale …
What does a centuries-old road through the heart of Germany look like today? This is what I want to find out in the next couple of months, when I walk from Frankfurt to Leipzig on a route that is known as the Via Regia. History of the Via Regia For centuries the Via Regia was …
Globalization may be a modern buzz word, but it is reality in Hamburg for more than 100 years. The city built a whole warehouse district in the late 19th century for precious goods from around the world: the historic Speicherstadt (literally: warehouse city). If you’re in Hamburg, make sure the historic Speicherstadt is on your …
Imagine a railway pulling super-heavy trains across a mountain range in the Arctic. That’s the Ore Line from Kiruna to Narvik. There are several ways you can explore this impressive route. Iron ore from the mine at Kiruna in Swedish Lapland is shipped by this railway for more than 100 years now to the ice-free …
Frankfurt’s central location within Germany made the city into a transportation hub and a place to early medieval times. It was the site of an important annual fair and the place where the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire met for centuries. Today, Frankfurt is part of the Rhein-Main agglomeration of more than five …
The moment I fully realized that my TGO Challenge 2015 was underway, I was standing next to a cairn on top of the mountain pass of Bealach an Sgairne. I was looking down the wide valley that would lead down to the forest in Glen Affric. It was a sunny afternoon and there was no …
Would you travel with a huge balloon-type vehicle filled with explosive gas across the ocean? The 1930s saw a brief period when airships had a technological edge over planes and transatlantic Zeppelin flights made an early service across the ocean possible. German airships are generally known as Zeppelins after Count von Zeppelin, the German …
