Central Railway Station and Tourist Information Centre

Welcome to Friedrichshafen. It’s very nice to have you here. I am Count Zeppelin, but you can call me Ferdinand. And today I’m going to show you my city! This is where I’m from, and I’m very proud of that.

Did you come here by train today? Then you’ll already know the train station! It was built more than 150 years ago, and it was the first ever station to be built on Lake Constance – and there are quite a lot of cities around there. So that was something special. At that time, the King from Württemberg actually lived in Stuttgart. But he wanted to spend the summer by Lake Constance, since Friedrichshafen was his summer residence. Therefore, he simply had a railway line built, as there were still no cars at that time! So, in summer, the King and Queen could always just get on the train directly to Friedrichshafen.

The city became really important because of this – not only for holidaymakers, but also for trade and post because everything travelled through Friedrichshafen. From here, you can also get to Bavaria and Baden quickly, as well as travelling across the Lake to Austria and Switzerland.
But be honest – if you arrive here at the train station and look directly at Lake Constance, don’t you feel like you’re on holiday, anyway? That’s also one of the reasons why Friedrichshafen has long been a popular tourist destination. And many of them still arrive here on the King’s old railway line. Friedrichshafen even gets its name from King Frederick.

There’s also a song about the railway line set up by the King from Stuttgart to Friedrichshafen – do you know it? “Auf de schwäbsche Eisebahne…” (“on the Swabian railway…”)