• Cheap Airport Hotel: Finally, affordable accommodations at the Frankfurt Airport. Just opened this month is the Steigenberger Esprix Hotel Frankfurt.
The no-frills hotel has 225 rooms equipped with cable TV, minibar, phone and in-house video. In addition there are 190 parking spaces and free shuttle service to terminals 1 and 2. The introductory price is 115 DM ($64) single or double. Breakfast is extra at 24 DM ($13) per person.
Contact: Steigenberger Esprix Hotel Frankfurt Airport Cargo City Süd, D-60549 Frankfurt am Main, tel. +49/69/69752418, fax 69752414.
• Swissair News: The airline adds five times per week service between Miami and Zürich beginning September 15.
- Starting January l, 2000, Atlanta will be serviced by two daily Swissair MD11 flights to Zürich in addition to daily Delta 767 service.
- On October 1, the code share Austrian Air service between Washington DC and Zürich will get Swissair equipment and crews.
- Swissair's new A330 aircraft will come with adjustable headrest "wings" and footrests in economy class. These same amenities will be retrofitted and soon be available on the airlines MD11 aircraft.
• Europe Goes Dark: On Wednesday, August 11, a total eclipse of the sun sweeps across the middle of Europe. The moon will block the sun and cast a running shadow 70 miles wide following the line: Land's End, England (11:10am British Summer Time) / Reims, France / Munich, Germany / Salzburg, Austria / Lake Balaton, Hungary / Varna, Bulgaria / Diyarbakir, Turkey (2:40pm local summer time).
The eclipse will cover this distance in 90 minutes (and move on across the Mideast and India). Assuming clear skies, the total eclipse will be visible to millions for a maximum of two minutes, 20 seconds; stars should be visible at the darkest moment. Even those not in the path of totality can experience a high degree of partial eclipse lasting two hours or more from all but the most northern points of Europe.
The center of the path of the eclipse passes just to the north of Stuttgart, Munich and Salzburg. Vienna, Graz and Budapest will be just at the edge of the path of totality. Places like Frankfurt, Prague, Zürich, Innsbruck, Berlin, and Dresden will see about a 90% eclipse.
See the NASA eclipse pages on the web at http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/eclipse.
March 1999
