Cold-hearted thieves steal “lovers’ padlocks” off Cologne’s Hohenzollern Bridge

by Libby Zay on

Police in Germany have arrested two thieves who were in the process of cutting “lovers’ padlocks” off Cologne’s Hohenzollern Bridge, a popular tourist attraction that spans the Rhine River. The padlocks, which were left by amorous couples who attach the locks to the bridge and then toss the key into the river below to symbolize eternal love, were presumably being stolen for their scrap value.

“I spotted two men on the other side of the bridge tampering with the lovers’ padlocks, so I called for back-up straight away,” a police officer said. The men tried to flee but were apprehended on the bridge. In a wheeled suitcase, police discovered 50 padlocks and a lock cutter. According to police, the men will appear in court on charges of property damage.

Click here to view a gallery of the lovers’ padlocks taken last May in Germany.

Travel search to become personal, focused, nosy

by Chris Owen on

Travel search engines come in a variety of sizes, shapes and brands all aiming to become our first choice when planning a trip. The ways in which we search for travel options today are very different from those we used only a few years ago, and likely, the ones we will use in the future. A new study, tapping the wants of the most connected travelers, says new technologies may create changes for our future travel planning methods.

“Today, we stand at the forefront of a technological evolution in travel that we refer to as Online Travel 3.0 which recognizes the power shift from suppliers to retailers and to end consumers,” says Stephane Durand, Director, Online & Leisure at Amadeus, a major provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel and tourism industry.

An Amadeus-commissioned, global study identified the online shopping behavior and future motivations of trend-setting travelers, indicating younger, savvy consumers are mastering travel information more. While not representative of the mainstream consumer, they have the most sophisticated shopping needs and represent the early adopters whose current behaviors and preferences are leading indicators of consumer behavior in the future.

What do we want and are likely to see in the future?

Truly private sales:
Look for travel sellers to micro-target promotions to specific consumers offering products that are actually relevant for the buyer.

Cumulative intelligence:
Learning from our online behavior over time, programs will aggregate common patterns while micro-segmentation will help companies analyze behavior and deliver increasingly intelligent results.

Smart systems and virtual private assistants:
Devices will become smart and interconnected, while storing and analyzing consumer behavior information. The program will recognize and process inputs from sites visited and will act as an assistant on the consumer’s behalf.

The study, Empowering Inspiration was based on surveying the behavior of 4,638 travelers in the U.S., U.K., Germany, India, Russia and Brazil.




Flickr photo by Danard Vincente

Museum Secrets learns the art of Viking warfare

by Jessica Festa on



When’s the last time you engaged in Viking sword fighting during your travels? Apparently, there are some people who are trained professionals in this skillful yet dangerous art form, like Kelle Longbow and his son Gernot. In fact, Museum Secrets got the chance to talk to the two fight choreographers and see the proper technique for Viking fighting in the exclusive video above.

According to BBC History, “Laws of the late Viking period show that all free men were expected to own weapons, and magnates were expected to provide them for their men.” Swords, battle axes, and spears were popular, with elaborately decorated swords symbolizing high status and wealth. Surprisingly, the Vikings had no professionally elected army, although the bonds between the men and their leaders were strong enough to hold them together. In the end, the goal was to capture or even kill the opposing leader.

Although the current sport uses dull blades and doesn’t involve death, the risk of injury is apparently still pretty high, as Viking warfare is based on hitting the enemy. Luckily, you can only strike on the upper arms, shoulders, torso, and knees to upper thighs.

To get a better idea of Viking warfare, check out the video above. Museum Secrets airs on Thursdays at 10 PM ET/PT on History Television Canada and for international viewers, more short videos are available at www.museumsecrets.tv.

The battle of leaning towers: Germany wins

by Dave Seminara on

Germany and Switzerland have long been known as bastions of cool efficiency, where the trains run on time, locals scold visitors for jaywalking and everything works. But travelers might be surprised to know that these countries are also home to four of the world’s most crooked towers, all of which lean more dramatically than the much more famous Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.

Since the completion of a decade-long restoration project reduced the angle of the Pisa tower’s tilt from 5.5 to just 3.99 degrees, a host of other towns have stepped forward to proclaim that their towers are the world’s biggest leaners, in the hopes that tourists will follow. In 2007, Reverend Frank Wessels, the pastor of a leaning church in the northwest German village of Suurhusen, contacted Guinness World Records, which confirmed the church as the world’s “Farthest Leaning Tower.” (see image above)

Wessels recently told Der Spiegel that the church now receives about 10,000 visitors per year. Not bad, but still quite modest compared to the 426,000 tourists who visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa last year, according to a tourism official quoted in The New York Times. But a number of other leaning towers have emerged in the wake of Suurhusen’s crooked anointment.
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A medieval defense tower in Dausenau, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, claimed a slightly greater tilt at 5.24 degrees, compared to 5.19 for Suurhusen, but Guinness rejected the bid because the tower is a crumbling ruin, not a functional, freestanding structure. A 12th century tower in St. Moritz, the tony Swiss ski resort, might have laid claim to the record, but a recent stabilization project reduced St. Mauritius’ slant from 5.4 degrees to 5.08.

Meanwhile, a 174 foot tall church bell tower in Bad Frankenhausen, a spa town in the eastern German state of Thuringia, has its own claim. The degree measurement of its slant is more modest than that of Suurhusen’s, but because its tower is nearly twice as tall, its total margin of deviation makes it appear even more crooked.Confused? Just wait. A steeple in Midum, a town near Suurhusen in the German region of East Frisia, claims its tilt is a whopping 6.74 degrees. But church leader Udo Aalderks hasn’t gotten around to making the claim with Guinness yet and it’s unclear if it would dislodge Suurhusen anyway, because the church in Midum is only 46 feet high.

An expert told Der Speigel that some 70% of the medieval churches of East Frisia are hopelessly tilted. Experts say this is because the region is “low-lying and marshy.” Many of the structures were built on wooden supports which are now rotting. Restoration is extremely expensive and the tower in Bad Frankenhausen is due for at least partial demolition unless the town can figure out how to pay for the needed repairs.

In 2010, Guinness sanctioned another leaning tower, this time in the Middle East. The Capital Gate tower in Abu Dhabi was purposely constructed with an impressive 18 degree slant and has been dubbed the world’s “Farthest leaning manmade tower.”

If you’re a crooked building aficionado, you might also check out the Leaning Tower of Pisa replica on Touhy Ave in Niles, near Chicago; the Crooked House in Sopot, Poland, and the Errante Guest House in Chile, to name just a few sloping beauties. And there is also the Crooked Road, Southwest Virginia’s 253-mile heritage music trail.

But despite all the competition for crooked glory, tourism officials in Pisa are apparently unconcerned by all the slanty claims. When a reporter for The New York Times asked Daniella Purchielli, Pisa’s tourism director, about the other towers, she said, “frankly, we haven’t heard about them. Our numbers are increasing.”

Gallery images via Wikimedia Commons, and Hippygit, Jaseman, and HarshLight on Flickr.

A museum of microcars in Germany

by Melanie Renzulli on




Before the automobile industry developed cars capable of going 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds, there were the microcars. In the 1950s and 1960s, several European countries, in particular West Germany, manufactured cheap, zippy microcars that were one step up on the evolutionary chain from motor scooters. Most of these models are long gone today, save for those hiding in the garages and warehouses of avid car collectors.

One such collector is Stefan Voit, a German car enthusiast who has spent two decades assembling a stash of more than 50 microcars. Voit recently opened the Kleinwagen and Rollersammlung Museum (Microcar and Motor Scooter Museum) in his hometown of St. Ingbert, Germany, and it is filled with small vintage cars from Germany, Italy, France, and other European countries.

On display are a “cemetery of car brands,” including the NSU Fiat Prinz, the Goggomobil, a Bond Minicar, and a Messerschmitt Cabin Scooter. There is a microcar with a plastic chassis (Spatz), a tiny, royal blue BMW Isetta with an equally tiny camper, and the world’s first car built with its engine in the center of the car (Zündapp Janus). Sharing the exhibition space with the candy-colored vintage cars are more than a dozen motor scooters, Vespas and the like, that provide a bit of perspective to the progression of wheeled vehicles in the mid-20th century.

St. Ingbert is located about 12 miles outside of the city of Saarbrücken in southwestern Germany. Admission to the Microcar Museum is available via written request at oldtimercamping.de.

Photo © Stefan Voit