The Lichtenbergers no longer have to worry about one thing: some kind of pseudo-superlative (“Longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world“)? In the super-super-super media age, no old bristly animal is interested in that anymore – and certainly not if media people had to set off for it in a corner of the world that is not notorious as a hotspot in the middle of a dense forest!
Yes, such a maximum construction is of interest – even if it does not seem to have any immediate meaning (apart from being as superlative as possible). If there were still doubts about this in Lichtenberg in Upper Franconia, they should have been mollified for a few months: The “Sky Bridge 721” was opened in a region that you wouldn’t step too close to if you wouldn’t – comparable to north-eastern Upper Franconia – not must count among the top international destinations: in the north-east of the Czech Republic.
More than four dozen reporters from half of Europe were in the village of Dolni Morava for the opening of the 721-meter-long structure – and since then they have had an idea in Lichtenberg of what they will have to prepare for. 450 kilometers west of Dolni Morava, there is sometimes talk of “almost the smallest town in Bavaria”, but you could do without that in Lichtenberg. The said “longest pedestrian bridge in the world”, on the other hand, should be hung in the Franconian Forest above Höllental in the future: 1030 meters long!
Now local dignitaries have to put up with the question of why it was much quicker and much cheaper to build bridges in the Czech Republic. Possibly, however, another topic is driving those addressed, much more threateningly. The MDR recently reported from the north-east Czech “Land of Silence” that the heavenly peace is really coming to an end there: there are no restaurants, pubs and other infrastructure, fences have to be erected so that invading tourists don’t trample on a landscape protection area and the village was suddenly completely blocked.
Deliberately turning a blessed land of silence into a fairground? Above the Lichtenberger Höllental you know this nightmare vision well. When the referendum was drummed there in 2020, led Opponents of the superlative bridge exactly that into the field: Why only let the Franconian countryside, its barrenness, its air, its forests become the threatening festival grounds of one-day tourism? Those were catchy arguments – of course they didn’t catch on.