Day 7 – Zwickau

A former East German town full of automotive history. Before the second world war Audi, DKW, Horch, and Wanderer came together to form Auto Union AG in response to the economic crisis that hit Germany in 1932. After the war, and as part of the DDR, it became home to the infamous Trabant. There is a fantastic museum in Zwickau dedicated to its automotive history – the August Horch Museum.

Zwickau is a layover on our way back to Sweden. It’s in the former DDR part of Germany and even though over 30 years have passed since the German unification you can still sense a difference as you pass through the little towns in the country side. They all seem very empty of people, and there are very few shops and service stations. Along the autobahn everything looks the same, but once you get off it on to the smaller roads the difference to the former east and west is very noticable.

We have a pleasant evening in Zwickau with a walk in their lovely city park around a lake after dinner in a biergarten across the road from the hotel.

The next morning I head to the museum while Anna and Cooper explore the city center. There is a special summer festival at the museum and the road infront is closed to traffic so that people with unusual cars can park their vehicles out the front. There is even a discount to get in. Lucky me! Wish I had had more time though. I walk around and try to take in as much as possible. It’s all really well presented, and even if it is almost all in German it is not hard to follow. It’s not just the cars themselves but the story of their engineering, design, manufacturing, and servicing. Beautifully done! Amazing to see how it went from the beautiful Horch cars before the war to terrible Trabants after when the Communists took over.