The alarm clock sounded last Saturday at the ungodly hour of 4:30am in the Schröder household in Munich. Within seconds it was game on.
The night before Elena and her husband had packed the car, prepared the snacks and had only a flask to fill before a quick departure. “Even the kids snap out of bed like elastic bands, nothing like the heavy sacks of flour they resemble during the school year,” says Elena. “To onlookers we are a slightly unkempt family climbing into a packed car but for us it feels like a heroic plunge into an adventure.”
The Schröders were not alone in their early rise last Saturday: millions of Bavarians jumped in their cars before sunrise to be first on the Autobahn to Italy.
If you think Germans are hardcore holidaymakers in Spain, reserving poolside sunbeds with towels at dawn, you should see them leaving home. Holidays in this country are a military operation; spontaneous relaxation in the sun requires a precise plan, a loud alarm clock and sharp elbows.
Aware of their own worst holiday habits, Germans try to agree rules among themselves. Rather than 84 million people launching into their summer holidays at the same time each year the 16 federal states stagger their six-week school holidays with five regional groups, starting in mid-June and ending mid-September. The groups rotate each year so that if one group of states are early one year, they will be later the following year.
Refusing to play along, though, are the two populous southern German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Both insist on taking their school holidays each year from mid-July to the end of August. And this even though the historic reason for their late holidays – so schoolchildren could help with the harvest – no longer applies.
The refusal of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg to rotate their school holidays, effectively claiming the sunniest weeks each year with a metaphorical bath towel, infuriates the other federal states. In retaliation the city-state of Hamburg has begun to chip away at the consensus system that dates back to 1964. It has announced plans to shift its holidays each year into July and early August.
These annual tensions over school holidays are not just about the August sunshine. People in Germany’s two southern states, the others complain, can take advantage of slightly lower holiday prices in September when many other Europeans are back at their desks.
Another ritual of the German holiday season is parents who find out that trying to save money can be an expensive business. States can impose fines of up to €2,500 on people who take their children out of school early. Last week the DPA news agency reported on parents at two Bavarian airports, unable to show border police a school note excusing their children, who were given verbal warnings.
Germany’s domestic tourism industry is alarmed by the crumbling consensus over rotating school holidays. Funnelling too many people into too narrow a holiday corridor, tourism lobbyists warn, could lead to an Italian-style squeeze where, for four weeks in August, the entire country makes a dash for the beaches.
Two centuries ago Italy was mythologised by the wandering German writer Goethe as “the land where the lemons blossom”. Postwar Germans fell in love with Italy all over again thanks to the VW Beetle.
Earlier this month, though, German federal health minister Karl Lauterbach called time on the tradition, warning of a “spectacular heatwave” during his Italian holiday. “These holiday destinations will have no future in the long term – climate change is destroying southern Europe,” he warned on Twitter/X. “An era is coming to an end.”
Italy’s irritated tourism minister Daniela Santanchè replied, through gritted teeth: “We are, of course, looking forward to welcoming [Lauterbach] again in the future. We are certain that the Germans will continue to appreciate holidays in Italy.”
For now at least German traffic reports appear to confirm her theory. Even with the staggered school holidays there is an overlap, last weekend and next, where millions of German motorists are on the move simultaneously.
Last Saturday afternoon Germany’s ADAC, the equivalent of the AA, announced tailbacks around Munich and Stuttgart were, on average, “only” 10km. This year’s record tailback so far was between Hanover and Hamburg, stretching up to 22km.
Elena’s Munich neighbour avoids all that by packing his car and heading with the family to Italy in the early evening. “All the others are gone,” says Klaus, “the roads are clear and it’s wonderful to travel into the glorious sunset.”