Air ship and zeppelin flights / flight history is a quite popular part of a visit at Lake Constance. In Friedrichshafen, there is the major Zeppelin Museum (written in German as Zeppelin-Museum) right at the lake and you can have flights with the latest air ship model, Zeppelin NT. However, the oldest museum about that topic in the region is located in the heart of the old town of Meersburg. It has already been found in March 1989 and was of course part of my visit to the area in June 2020.
Zeppelin Museum Meersburg – Location & Admission
The Zeppelin Museum is located right in the heart of Meersburg. It is a bit of tricky to find the place when in the upper city. The easiest way is to head towards the Castle Meersburg – but then head the stairs down on the right hand side instead of crossing the bridge. The museum, which is located at Schlossplatz 8, is the first entrance on the right hand side. It is open daily, 10:00 to 18:00 hrs, in peak months March to November.
Adult admission to the museum is 5 Euro. You receive a discount with your Kurkarte in case you stay in a nearby hotel. For an additional Euro, you may watch a roughly half-an-hour documentary about the history of zeppelins. As the parking situation in Meersburg is quite ridiculous – a maximum parking time of two hours and a very limited parking situation in general – I unfortunately could not spent that time in addition to my visit.
Zeppelin Museum Meersburg – The Visit
At first sight, the place feels to be very small, but the private collection, which has majorly been set up by a private person, Heinz Urban, is really extensive. There are numerous original uniforms, original cutlery and tableware and pictures – the room is really packed with all kinds of memorabilia, covering civil and military air ship flights. The key part of the exhibition are technical items, though. My favorite exhibit was the original steering wheel of the Hindenburg, but there are a lot of other items like technical instruments (e.g. altimeters), beams and navigation instruments.
The museum is driven by a lady, who is super-motivated to tell you a lot of stories behind the items. It may be very helpful to understand some of the items or just to focus on the most important exhibits. Unfortunately, the museum does not allow to take pictures usually, which I feel is ridiculous nowadays. Finally, we agreed that I do a couple of wide-angle shots, which give you a bit of an idea what this place is like.
Zeppelin Museum Meersburg – The Movie
As stated above, the museum also offers a 30 minute movie, which is started on demand for an additional fee. The movie gets really great receptions in the internet, so I would likely recommend to add that this half an hour to your museum visit.
Zeppelin Museum Meersburg – My View
“Unfortunately” is somehow my keyword about Zeppelin Museum Meersburg. It is definitely a fantastic collection. The presentation is likely reasonable regarding the location and space currently available. If Meersburg would allow you to have better parking times, you could easily spent more than an hour in here. The museum is just a bit of old fashioned – with some better touch for social media and nowadays online presentation, the place could just be so much more present and not just a place for die-hard aviation fans – the enthusiasm of the collectors would definitely deserve that. Of course, still a Top Pick!
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