Transparent Factory

Have you ever wondered how luxury cars are made? Today we will have the opportunity to visit an amazing car factory - the Transparent Factory in Dresden. It owns its name to the material from which it was built - almost all the walls are made of glass! 

The factory is large but is located relatively close to the city center in an area that used to be a fair area.

To limit the impact of the factory on the city, a special CarGo Tram was designed. It uses the regular tram rails and brings three times a day components from another site to the Transparent Factory.

Do you want to see the factory inside? Not only is it possible to enter inside but the factory offers a number of guided tours, available for many language and age groups.

As you see, the inside walls are also made of glass.

On the upper floors all stages of car manufacturing take place.

Here the so-called body-in-white arrive for the final assembly.

It is not allowed to take pictures inside but I took a few shots from a movie shown in the lobby. You can see how the seats are installed ...

... and doors are mounted.

The round-shaped tower houses ready-made cars awaiting for clients to pick them up.

The Transparent Factory is the birthplace of Volkswagen flagship car Phaeton.

Have you ever had the chance to sit in a car worth well over a hundred thousand euro?

The steering wheel made of well polished wood and high quality leather smells and feels like real luxury. 

Though I must tell you honestly that out of all the cars that I have seen in Dresden I liked best that one.

It is a Horch 951, built in 1938 by the father of the Audi brand. It does not have ABS or safety belts. But looks just amazing.

Who knows, maybe one day I will be able to afford a car like this. For the time being, I will keep on travelling by all means available. Because travelling is the essence of my life.

Bergwerk Käpfnach

Today we will take a tour in a place out of common. Let me invite you to a special visit in the Bergwerk Käpfnach, a genuine coal mine located in the picturesque town of Horgen, on the shores of the Zurich Lake.

Nowadays, most of Swiss energy consumption is covered with nuclear and hydro power. Therefore, coal mines like the one in Horgen are no longer needed. They remain however witnesses of the industrial heritage of the region.

The entire area of the Käpfnach coal mine is large, including around 80 kilometres of tunnels below the Zimmerberg mountain.

To move the coal around such area man needed help. I have heard that in some coal mines they used horses to do this work! How outrageous. I did not receive a clear answer how these wagons were moved around, but looking at their weight I can only trust this was steam power or electricity.

Look, here comes a little model of the mine. This definitely looks like a locomotive. What a relief, no horses were harmed here my friends. We can get in!

First we can take a look at the overground museum, where different types of coal are exhibited. In the Käpfnach mine the so-called brown coal was mined.

But looking at artefacts in a museum is no fun. So let's jump on the red train called Barbara. Saint Barbara is the holy patron of miners, who celebrate with great care her day, being 4th December. The inscription on top of the tunnel says "Glück auf!" which is a traditional greeting of German-speaking miners, expressing a wish for successful mining and safe return on the ground.

The little red train will take us inside the tunnels that used to be production lines. They are narrow just enough to accommodate the train, so you can literally touch the walls next to you.

They are also low, so helmets are a must.

The brown coal is not really brown. But it is also not black like the charcoal you would normally have in mind when thinking of a mine.

The layer of coal in Käpfnach is only one meter tall, which you can clearly see here.

Did you notice the thermometer? Do you have any idea how many centigrade are here? Less than ten in fact.

Do not be surprised, after all we are 500 meters below ground level.

I think that you are staring to realise that mining in a place like that was not a piece of cake. It was dark, cold and narrow. The miners were digging the coal out lying on the floor, in a hole that was just about one meter high.

Then, they were putting the coal into the mining wagons so that it is brought up.

The Käpfnach mine was mainly used during war time. First during the French-Prussian war in 1870, then during the First and Second World War. It was finally closed in 1947. A group of enthusiasts keeps the memory of the old times by introducing tourists to the hard life of the miners.

I hope that you have enjoyed this unusual trip below the surface of the Earth. Now the last stage. Grab your carbide lamps and try to find your way out! Glück auf!"

Museum of Technology in Warsaw - part 2: Music

The horses are not only used to travel or work. We also bring leisure. This is also the case for the technology - it is not only created for travelling and working. It also serves leisure. Museum of Technology in Warsaw, apart from cars, offers exhibitions on many other topics and among them we have chosen the musical machines. They were created to have fun for the ones that, as me, cannot play or sing as good as they would like to.

100 years ago the cheapest way to listen to the music was to give a coin to an organ grinder.

In the museum I have learnt that their sound was created by pipes, just like in the typical church organs. The selection of tones was done with use of a pinned cylinder.

Such cylinders, obviously of different sizes, were used in other types of musical automates, like music boxes.

But here, as you can see, the sound was created by a metal comb. No, the comb was not multipurpose, the musician could use it for his hair.


The cylinders were also used for typical Western saloon automated pianos.

 But the most impressive music machine of the museum is the orchestrion.

 As always the most interesting part is hidden and one must open the door to see it.

Yes, you are correct. There are many instruments inside, apart from a piano you can see a musical triangle, a drum and a cymbal. All of them connected to the cylinder and automated.

But as with the cars, to let musical machines enter all houses, the technology needed to make a big step. Step to the disc.

The first ones were made of metal.

The second generation was made of cardboard.

And this way we came to the almost contemporary gramophones, tapes and CDs.

The best thing about the Museum of Technology in Warsaw is that you can not only see these machines but also listen to all of them. As an example I propose that we listen to the Polish national anthem. Played by a music box of course.

Museum of Technology in Warsaw - part 1: Automotive

Recently my human family decided to show me something called technology. They explained me that technology is what allowed horses to take permanent holidays. So I love it. But what is this technology? To understand it they took me to the Museum of Technology in Warsaw.

As they told me, the technology started to replace horses when the engine became widely used. And the engines at the end of nineteenth century looked like this.

It can work without breaks, but does not look as cute as me. Contemporary engines look quite interesting, although the fire seems frightening.

Obviously one cannot ride an engine. So people invented cars. The first, from the end of the nineteenth century, looked similar to a carriage.

With time cars become covered, with a lot of glass. And people started to produce them in big quantity, thanks to the optimisation of assembly lines. The most influential car of the twentieth century is the famous Ford Model T.

The first cars produced in Poland was built on Italian license. So it was called Polish Fiat.

Ford T was the first car, that a typical American family could afford. So in the second half of the twentieth century also in Poland they invented a car for typical family: Maluch. It was pretty small inside which you can see on this one that was cross-cut.

But in Poland they also produced bigger cars and the last of the line of their development is Polonez. Jeremy Clarkson form Top Gear judged it to be amoung the worst cars of the world. Well, what  Clarkson probably does not know is that also a racing version was constructed.

But if you prefer to feel the freedom of riding, the technology offers you another option - motorcycles.

With such a sidecar you can even take your family with you. It is probably the invention closest to horses but it still make more noise then, we do.