Experience the best of Friedrichshafen

Friedrichshafen faces south across Lake Constance, the Bodensee, with the Swiss and Austrian Alps on the horizon on a clear day. The town was created in 1811 and became the home of Count Zeppelin's airship works, and the Zeppelin Museum on the harbour follows the history of the giant airships. The Dornier Museum, at the airport, shows aircraft built by a local company.

The baroque Schlosskirche, with its twin onion-domed towers, stands on the lakeshore beside the former monastery palace. Ferries cross to Romanshorn in Switzerland and run along the lake to Konstanz, Meersburg and Lindau. Meersburg's clifftop castle, the Unteruhldingen museum of reconstructed Stone Age and Bronze Age pile houses, and the Birnau pilgrimage church lie west along the shore.

Whitefish and perch fillets from the lake are served with fried potatoes, alongside Swabian Maultaschen and Spätzle. Orchards of apples and pears become juice, cider and schnapps, and the lakeside slopes grow Müller-Thurgau grapes. Blossom covers the orchards in April, and warm föhn winds on some days make the Alps seem close.