The Great Towel War

Probably the biggest stereotype about German tourists is the one of the German father who gets up at the crack of dawn to lay towels on the best lounge chairs by the pool for his family, then leaves for several hours of sleep, breakfast, and siteseeing.  

And it's a particularly strong stereotype among the British tourists, who have fought against the Germans for decades in The Great Towel War. Since the 1960s, this war has been fought summer after summer in Spanish resorts. 

In 2005, German attorney Ralf Höcker researched Spanish and German laws, concluding that leaving a towel on a chair was not legally binding.  Obviously this had no impact, as two years later a Welsh tour bus driver took matters into his own hands.  After two days of taking the towels off the chairs, dumping them in the pool, with the German tourists getting up even earlier to claim chairs, he set fire to the towels. 

A few years ago, German travel agency Thomas Cook came up with the brilliant idea to allow its customers to rent a lounger for €3 per day.  You can also rent your strandkorb on Sylt for the day, so I'm not really sure why more places don't do this. Seems like an easy solution to a common conflict!

Anyway... we saw this old Carling beer commercial on a German TV show last night, making fun of the stereotype.  I'm sure we could spend a week or two talking about the stereotypes about other tourists...especially Americans...but for now we'll just enjoy Carling's clever use of this one.