Hannover, Germany 7 July, 2015

We’ve stayed the last couple of days in the town of Wolfsburg, Germany.  It wasn’t a city until 1938 and was created for the sole purpose of manufacturing Volkswagens and housing the employees.  At that time it was known as Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersieben (City of the KdF Car at Fallersieben).  A real mouthful and it was re-christened Wolfsburg in 1945.  Wolfsburg’s primary industry and employer is still Volkswagen.  It is the richest city in Germany with a per capita income of $128,000.  Everyone works for and drives Volkswagens.  In the middle of all this industry is a Ritz-Carlton Hotel.  Volkswagen convinced them to build here and promised a 75% occupancy year round.  This would be from people coming to pick up their VW’s from the factory then driving it to wherever home is in Europe or the U.K.  With the hotel and auto museum it becomes a family holiday for many. 

So, here we’ve been.  After the initial strangeness we all kind of got into it.  The hotel itself is comfortable, the food is great, the gym is fantastic and so is the outdoor swimming pool with it’s view of the VW power station.  Yesterday’s day off was spent in that auto museum, gym and pool.  Last night we walked from the hotel into the “town” on a series of moving sidewalks and ended up at a tapas bar called, wait for it, Cafe and Bar Celona.  I don’t make this stuff up, I just report it. 

It was poolside again this morning before jumping in our own fleet of VW’s for the hour drive to Hannover and tonight’s show at the TUI Arena.  A full house of 10,000 tonight and another cracking show from MK & Co.  We’re all just loving playing these performances and the show seems to fly by each night.

A runner back to Autostadt (Auto City) which is what this immediate area of Wolfsburg is called.  

We pull up stakes tomorrow and head to Berlin.

So long,

Richard