Langen

Langen directs Germany's sky and checks its vaccines. The Hessian mid-town between Frankfurt and Darmstadt hosts two federal nerve centres: the Deutsche Flugsicherung — the national air-traffic control, whose Langen centre steers the crowded airways of half the country from banks of radar screens — and the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, the federal authority for vaccines and biomedicines, bearing the Nobel laureate's name and carrying national responsibility whenever an epidemic tests the republic. The old town remembers gentler infrastructure: the Vierröhrenbrunnen, the four-spouted Renaissance well of 1553, is the beloved emblem at the heart of the half-timbered quarter, feted each summer when the Ebbelwoi flows at the Langener Markt — one of the region's oldest fairs — and the apple-wine taverns keep south-Hessian custom. Recreation is water-blessed: the Langener Waldsee, the great flooded gravel lake in the town forest, is the Rhine-Main region's favourite beach — sails, beach bars and summer crowds an S-Bahn ride from the banking towers — while the Koberstadt woods absorb joggers and mushroom hunters. Radar in the offices, apple wine at the well, sand between the toes: Langen manages the metropolis's essentials, including its days off.