Prague to Munich - Part 2 Great Continental Railway Journeys

'I'm embarking on a new railway adventure that will take me

'across the heart of Europe.'

I'll be using this - my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide,

dated 1913, which opened up an exotic world of foreign

travel for the British tourist.

'It told travellers where to go, what to see and how to navigate

'the thousands of miles of tracks criss-crossing the Continent.

'Now, a century later,

'I'm using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

'where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.'

I want to rediscover that lost Europe that, in 1913, couldn't know

that its way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

'On the second part of my journey through central Europe,

'I work on Germany's first steam locomotive...'

OK, would you want to fill the firebox now?

It would be my privilege.

Really is extraordinarily hot in there. Glowing coals.

'..learn how to eat white sausage, Bavarian style...'

-I'll show you. It's called "zuzeln".

-Zuzeln.

-Zuzeln.

Mmm!

'..fly by the seat of my pants at Munich's technical university...'

A little bit up, please. OK, it's going to be a hard landing.

I don't think I'd like to be a passenger.

'..and pit myself against an enormous fire-breathing monster.'

En garde, dragon!

My journey began in Bohemian Prague,

took a noble spa break at Marianske Lazne,

and went on to imperial armaments in Pilsen.

Today, I'm crossing the German border into fire-breathing Bavaria

to visit the birthplace of the German railway, Nuremberg.

Alighting finally in the region's scientifically superior capital,

Munich.

I'll soon be crossing the border into Germany.

Historically, the frontier between Bavaria and Bohemia

has been one of the thick lines on the map.

Before World War I,

it divided the German Empire from that of Austria-Hungary.

After World War I, Germany was on one side

and Czechoslovakia on the other.

After World War II, it formed part of the Iron Curtain

with capitalism on one side and communism on the other.

My journey has taken me across the Czech border into Bavaria,

a land of legend and romanticism.

I'll then discover railway history in Nuremberg

and finally explore how Munich developed

from high culture to hi tech.

GUARD SPEAKS CZECH/GERMAN

Tickets, please.

-Dekuji.

-Dekuji.

Dekuji. Danke.

Danke. Dekuji.

I've alighted at Furth im Wald, a village of about 10,000 people

with a small station, but line after line of sidings,

which, I suppose, tells us something about, historically,

the geographical, strategic and political importance of that border.

Furth im Wald in Eastern Bavaria

sits just a couple of miles from the Czech border.

Because of its perilous geography, I hear

that its people are worried about invasion from the East,

a fear that assumes a monstrous form in their nightmares.

I never saw a place more festooned with images of dragons.

There must be something that lies behind this village's obsession

with scaly, fire-breathing creatures.

-I notice everywhere in the village there are dragons.

-OK.

Why are there so many dragons?

This is the only town in the world, we have a dragon.

-Drachenstich. Don't you know it?

-No.

-While so many dragons in Furth im Wald?

-It's our history.

-The dragon is in the hall.

-The dragon's in the hall?

In the hall.

Every year in August, there is a big festival here in the town

with a knight and a dragon and a princess.

Does your dog like dragons?

No, no, no, no.

Who plays the dragon? Who is the dragon?

-No, we really have a dragon.

-You really have a dragon?

-Yes.

I'm on a quest to meet this mythical creature

and local teacher Josef Kraus has agreed to tell me

what Drachenstich, Furth im Wald's annual festival, is all about.

There has always been a big rivalry between the East and the West.

The East is represented by the Bohemians and the west,

in this case, by Bavaria.

So it's the fight between the good and the evil

and the evil is represented by the dragon that comes from the East.

What do you use for a dragon?

I mean, you don't have a real dragon, do you?

Well, we've built an enormous monster.

-Oh, I'd love to see that.

-Yeah, you will.

Furth im Wald's story is founded on the legend of St George

and every year since the 16th century,

thousands of people have visited to see its dragon.

Its latest incarnation

is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records

as the largest four-legged walking machine on the planet.

That is absolutely superb! I have never seen such an enormous dragon!

DRAGON ROARS

Brilliant, brilliant.

Look at those enormous jaws and teeth!

Whoa!

I thought it was looking at me there.

Absolutely brilliant monster.

Smoke, fire, swivelling eyes, massive jaws and teeth.

Everything you could possibly want in a dragon.

Sandro Bauer is one of the dragon's creators.

He handles one of its remote controls.

And he is the town's mayor.

I'm just so impressed by your dragon. It is huge!

What are its statistics?

It has dimensions of 60 metres in the length,

four metres by more than five metres in the height

and it has a wingspan wide of more than 12 metres

and a weight of 11 tonnes.

My goodness!

-What does it cost to get a dragon like that?

-Well, that's a secret.

THEY LAUGH

-Who fights the dragon?

-We have a knight.

Every year we have a new knight, a new young man

and it's a big carnival for the young man to be the knight.

May I cast you?

I thought you wanted a young man!

DRAGON SNARLS

If you're having trouble with a dragon, call a dragon slayer.

En garde, dragon!

'I've taken on a number of big beasts over the years,

'but none as fiery as this.'

Aaaargh!

-I think I've killed him, by george!

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thanks, Michael, you made him dead. For next year, we will let you know.

Oh.

My next stop will be Nuremberg, Nurnberg in German.

My guidebook tells me that it's on the River Pegnitz.

"The most striking and interesting of medieval towns,

"it's now the most important

"manufacturing and commercial town of South Germany."

I'm thinking that the railways must have played an important part

in that industrialisation.

Nuremberg became part of Bavaria in 1806.

Three decades later, this impressive medieval town made German history.

The country's first steam locomotive service

ran on the four-mile Ludwigs Bahn Line

between Nuremberg and the city of Furth.

In 1935, to celebrate the railway's centenary,

this replica of its original locomotive,

the Adler or Eagle, was built.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Still running, it's reminiscent of George Stephenson's Rocket

and I'm hoping that

the curator of the city's transport museum knows why.

Where did the original locomotive come from?

The original locomotive came from the Stephenson Locomotive Works

-in Newcastle upon Tyne.

-That was Mr George Stephenson?

It was George Stephenson.

And how on earth did you get a locomotive

from Britain to Nuremberg in those days?

Packed in 17 boxes and transported on a ship

and then on a river barge to Cologne

where the River Rhine was so low that they had to load it out

and bring on a wagon on the street to Nuremberg.

And who knew how to put it all together?

Mr George Stephenson sent a mechanic, Mr William Wilson,

and he set together all the parts of the locomotive.

OK, would you want to fill the firebox now?

It would be my privilege.

-It's tough being a fireman, you know.

-You do it very good.

It really is extraordinarily hot in there, glowing coals.

What happened to Wilson after that?

He became the locomotive driver, a very famous citizen

and people only used the train

when Mr Wilson was standing on this place on the locomotive.

And he...

He made the success of the Ludwig's Railway in the first 20 years.

WHISTLE BLOWS

It's fascinating that George Stephenson,

one of the heroes of Britain's early railway history,

played such an important role in Bavaria's too.

Stepping now onto one of Germany's modern ICE trains,

I'm struck by how dramatically rail travel

and passenger expectations have changed since the 1830s.

German doctors feared that when the trains were first introduced,

the high speed would drive people mad.

Well, this is the Inter City Express

and the newest variant travels at up to 200 miles per hour

and I'm still feeling relatively sane.

My next stop is Munich,

transformed in the 19th century by Bavarian King Ludwig I

into a neoclassical gem and a cultural heartland.

Much has changed since then,

but I'm determined to find out what remains

of King Ludwig's appreciation of the finer things in life.

Munich station is big and bold and new and full of food outlets.

You don't get any sense of history here,

except perhaps the size, because this was, after all,

a station fit for the capital of Bavaria.

If Munich's older buildings

are a clue to the city's innate grandeur...

..the Town Hall confirms its early 20th century confidence.

Bradshaw's tells me that this is the Neues Rathaus, the New Town Hall.

Indeed, it's neo-Gothic.

It had been opened shortly before my Bradshaw's guide was written.

It talks of a city that is wealthy and wants to show off,

but with all the little figures on the outside,

this architecture is also fun.

Steered by an advertisement in my guidebook, I've chosen to

stay at the Bayerischer Hof, one of Munich's oldest hotels.

Rebuilt in painstaking detail after the Second World War,

the hotel first opened in 1841

and I hear that it has a connection to King Ludwig I.

-Good evening, Ingrid.

-Hello.

-How lovely to see you.

'The current owner is Ingrid Volkhardt.' Thank you very much.

Tell me, why was the hotel built in the first place?

The story is that King Ludwig actually asked the hotel to be built

in order for his guests to have a home

and once in the week they say he had his personal bath in the hotel

because the hotel was the first place in Munich to have bathtubs.

Apart from King Ludwig,

you must have had many distinguished guests over the years?

One of the really great people staying in the hotel was Franz Kafka,

who really is my personal favourite author

and also people of politics, church, show business.

A place full of celebrities. I'll see if I can fit in.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

On my last day in Bavaria, I'm hoping to discover

what made this royal city tick, both culturally and scientifically,

on the eve of the Great War.

What was life like here in 1913?

At the time of my guidebook, no visit to Munich was complete

without sampling the Weisswurst, or white sausage.

Sepp Kraetz has invited me to his restaurant

to sample the boiled Bavarian banger.

-Hello, sir.

-Hello, Michael. Nice to see you.

-Very nice to see you, sir.

So, I've come to try your... Thank you. ..your famous white sausage.

That's a good idea. A very good idea. Waitress.

-Please, bring us very hot white sausages.

-Ha-ha!

-Hello.

-Ah! White...

-That doesn't look like a sausage to me!

-Oh. Looks good, huh?

-It looks very good indeed.

Now, excuse me, we're sitting here in the morning

with sausage and beer, is this normal?!

Yeah, we say in Germany or in Bavaria, it's a second breakfast.

-Cheers!

-Cheers, Michael!

-To my second breakfast!

-Yes!

Weisswurst, first created from veal and pork

by a Bavarian butcher in 1857,

is encased in a skin.

And I'm told that there's a skill to extracting the succulent filling.

Now, sir, how do I eat my sausage?

The first one is you cut like a piece of... Mouthful, and then you do this.

-So, I pin down the skin...

-Like the doctor.

-Oh, look, and rotate...

-Yes...

-..the flesh of the sausage out of the skin.

Oh, that's a very good method.

-Mmm.

-Always you have to drink between the sausage and the pretzel

-the weiss beer.

-Cheers!

-I could get used to this, I think.

-Thank you!

-You're welcome.

OK, in the old time,

the people ate the white sausage from the hand in the mouth.

I'll show you. A little bit...

-It's called "zuzeln".

-Zuzeln.

-Zuzeln.

Mmm!

So, I dip in the mustard...

I put it in the mouth...

I squeeze my lips together...

..and the sausage pops into my mouth leaving the skin behind.

-Works good, huh?

-It works really well.

For the first time you do very well.

-Thank you.

-Prost.

-You've taught me lots of interesting things today.

Bradshaw's tells me that modern Munich is especially identified

with progress in German art

and then lists a very large number of galleries,

so the time has come for me to have a brush

with the artistic scene of the early 20th century.

Whilst much of Europe was awash with Art Nouveau,

in 1912, Bavarian-based artists Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky

edited an almanac of art and essays which became one of the most

influential art books of the 20th century,

Der Blaue Reiter, or Blue Rider.

The book introduced a sceptical world

to a group of German-Jewish and Russian artists

who, rather than simply portray their subjects,

used colour to express their feelings.

They were amongst the first Expressionists.

Annegret Hoberg curates the Blue Rider collection

at Munich's Lenbachhaus gallery.

Here now we are in the large room of August Macke and Franz Marc.

One of the main pieces of this artist, of Marc, is, of course, his Blue Horse.

The Blue Horse one.

Now, yes, indeed, I recognise this painting.

Why has this become the icon of the movement?

Because it's a kind of symbol. The horse is blue.

This was the colour of the spirit for Kandinsky and for Franz Marc.

The blue was the symbol of spirit.

But it's also the posture of the horse.

It's standing there like a human being.

It symbolises a kind of spiritualisation of art

via the motif of the animal.

Moscow-born Wassily Kandinsky, trained in music,

is renowned for approaching his use of colour

with a musician's sensibility.

In 1909, the artist who lived in the Bavarian village of Murnau

painted what Annegret thinks might turn out to be

my favourite Blue Rider piece.

I'm delighted to see that Kandinsky painted a train.

-Why did he do that?

-Because it ran beneath his house in Murnau

and it was, of course, important for him in a way

because he went between Munich and Murnau by train,

so the train was an element of their daily life.

And what happened to the artists of the Blue Rider movement?

That's an important question

because when the World War first broke out,

August Macke, who was only 26 years old,

he was one of the first who were killed in September 1914

and Franz Marc was killed in Verdun in March 1916.

So this very, very brilliant movement that arose in Munich

at the beginning of the 20th century was very short-lived?

Short-lived, yes.

In the years leading up to the First World War,

Munich's entrepreneurs were less concerned with avant-garde artistic movements

than with placing their city at the forefront of cutting-edge industry.

A century later, it's a trend that continues,

with some of Germany's best-known companies headquartered here,

alongside leading seats of learning

like the city's technical university.

I could hardly come to one of the world's most advanced countries

without taking a peep at today's Germany.

'I'm at this impressive campus to meet researchers who are developing

'flight stabiliser software designed to help inexperienced private pilots

'to land light aircraft safely.'

-Hello.

-Hello.

-I'm Michael.

-Can I get in the driver's seat?

-Yeah, really!

This obviously is a flight simulator,

but what is special about it?

What are you doing with it at this university?

We use it for controller development

and we want the pilot to fly the aircraft smooth

and we wanted to reduce the workload of the pilot.

-So, this is not about training pilots, it's about developing software?

-Right.

How can you best demonstrate to me what it is you're doing here?

So I think the best way to demonstrate it is that we make a flight.

So, today as I've never flown an aircraft before,

I can see the runway there, I think it's Munich Airport.

-I can also see that it's raining.

-Yeah.

-Is the weather quite bad, actually?

-Yeah, it's really bad. You have much turbulences.

-Right. Thank you very much(!)

So, now you can control the aircraft.

-It's very sensitive controls.

-Yeah.

-Whoa!

I don't think I'd like to be a passenger!

Now it's easier because I've put the controller on.

-I'm flying now towards the runway.

-Yeah.

-Keeping the nose...

-Not too much.

-Not too much. A little bit up again.

The stabilisers are helping me because it's not as bumpy as it was.

-I'm swaying towards the runway.

-Yeah, nose down. A little bit up.

A little bit up, please.

OK, it's going to be a hard landing.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

I think the best...

I don't think your stabilisers helped me quite enough.

-HE SIGHS

-But it did actually feel...

It did feel better even though I still managed not quite to

get onto the runway. Thank you very much and what a brilliant project.

You won't find many pilots as bad as me.

Yeah, no problem. You're welcome.

Some say that the final destination of my 1913 adventure,

situated on an island on Munich's River Isar,

paved the way for the city's early 20th century development

from a city of art and culture to a hub of hi-tech excellence.

Bradshaw's tells me that in the Deutsches Museum

are collections relating to natural science and engineering.

Kings and countries had exhibited their treasures of art

since time immemorial but the idea of displaying

the artefacts of science was new at the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1903, German electricity pioneer Oskar von Miller

unveiled plans to build the Deutsches Museum,

an impressive and visionary institution

that now holds more than 100,000 exhibits.

Dr Willie Fussell is in charge of the archives.

-Willie, hello.

-Hello, Michael. How are you?

Tell me, what was the origin of the idea of having a science museum,

a Deutsches Museum, in Munich?

The original idea was, in 1891,

when the founder of the Deutsches Museum, Oskar von Miller,

made an exhibition in Frankfurt.

Oskar von Miller was, in this time, a very famous engineer in Germany.

He was a co-founder of the AEG, for example,

and he'd built up several power stations in Germany.

Now visited by over a million people every year,

the museum opened its first temporary exhibition

in 1906 in the former National Museum building.

The very next day, the foundation stone was laid for this,

the project's permanent home on Coal Island.

In 1934, Oskar von Miller suffered a heart attack

and died hours after visiting his beloved museum.

As I pass through it, I'm impressed by his legacy.

A collection which illustrates the pivotal moments

from the history of science and technology.

Moments that have shaped our lives.

In the aircraft hall,

a replica of aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal's recreational glider

is exhibited next to the Fokker triplane,

flown during the Great War by the Red Baron.

Has conflict played a big part in scientific progress, I wonder.

Technical development is forced by wars, by military, of course.

Especially many aircraft are developed from World War I

to World War II.

On the other hand, they transfer back to peaceful uses,

as we can see in the Deutsches Museum, too.

In the last 100 years, there's been a transformation in Munich

from a city of art to a city of science as well.

Do you think Oskar von Miller played an important part in that?

Yes, I do, because nowadays,

Munich has several universities, well-known worldwide.

-And we should thank Oskar von Miller for that?

-Yes. We should do.

This guidebook was published in an age of innocence.

In the centuries since, the Germans have been crushed twice

and their cities razed to the ground.

The Bohemians who, in 1913, dreamt of liberty,

were enslaved for 50 years,

first by Nazis, then by Communists.

The Bohemians and the Bavarians retain a distinctive culture today,

rooted in their history as independent kingdoms.

And where the Iron Curtain once descended,

nothing now blocks the tracks.

Citizens and their ideas move freely.