Gersthofen

Gersthofen keeps its head in the clouds by municipal tradition. The town's landmark, a handsome Jugendstil water tower, houses the Ballonmuseum — one of Europe's notable collections devoted to ballooning, from the pioneering ascents that made neighbouring Augsburg an early capital of lighter-than-air adventure to stratosphere gondolas and modern sport balloons, gas-flame romance curated over several storeys with the fitting bonus of a view from the top.

The ground-level story is water put to work: the Lech canals, engineered from the Alpine river's power, strung Gersthofen with hydroelectric works from the 1900s and drew the chemical industry that turned the village into an industrial town — the plants, much evolved, still anchor a broad commercial base that makes Gersthofen one of Bavarian Swabia's more prosperous municipalities, its civic architecture and generous Stadthalle programme (concerts, cabaret and theatre well above small-town expectation) showing the dividends.

Augsburg begins at the city limits: the Fuggers' Renaissance metropolis, its trams and UNESCO-listed water management system — a neat kinship, water engineering on both sides of the boundary — lies minutes away, while the Lechauen's gravel-bed wilderness and cycling levees stretch north toward the Danube. A balloon in the tower, turbines in the canals, a metropolis next door: Gersthofen rises and works in equal measure.