Are you passionate about airplanes? The 'cult' places you must visit in Europe (you only need a weekend)

The United States is the 'Toyland' for aviation enthusiasts. There are Boeing and the world's finest museums there where you can admire the airplanes of yesterday and today. And there are also the most spectacular airports there, in terms of traffic, airlines, types of airplanes, vantage points.

However, there are more accessible places that are definitely worth visiting even in Europe. Perhaps simply taking advantage of a weekend. Europe is the 'home' of Airbus, which has two assembly lines: one in Toulouse and one in Hamburg. Both can be visited, through guided tours that must be booked online in advance.

In Toulouse you can see the A321neo assembly line, created where A380s were previously built, the A350 assembly line, and the Aeroscopia museum, where some 40 aircraft are on display including. an A380, well two Concorde (one prototype and one former Air France), the 'Super Guppy' (which is the propeller version that preceded the 'Belugas'), a A400M (very powerful four-engine turboprop military transport) and an A300B, the 'daddy' of all Airbuses. Airbus headquarters and museum are located in Saint Nazare, a suburb of Toulouse where the city's international airport is also located.

In Hamburg, however, Airbus is based at Finkenwerder Airport. (which is not where you arrive as a passenger): this is the place where the A321neo and A320 neo are built, whose assembly lines you can visit, and also the place where Airbus outfits the interiors of some of its aircraft according to customer specifications.

Always in Germany, but in the south near Stuttgart, stands the Technik Museum Sinsheim, which exhibits dozens of models of mostly passenger airplanes at its two locations in Sinsheim and Speyer (which are about 30 km apart).

At the Sinsheim venue, the two 'highlights' of the exhibition are a former Air France Concorde and its Soviet 'competitor,' the Tupolev Tu-144. The latter alone is worth the visit because it is the only example of the Soviet-made supersonic aircraft made in the USSR in Europe, as well as the only one that can also be visited inside. Both the Concorde and the Tupolev are mounted on steel pylons with their snouts pointing upward, as if they were taking off, and both are accessed via special metal ladders.

Same system is used in Speyer, where The 'star' is instead a Boeing 747-200 from Lufthansa, which can also be visited inside (both the main and upper decks), with the addition of an exciting walk on one of its mighty wings.

Returning to France, but moving from Toulouse in the capital city of Paris, the must-see event this year is the spectacular Air Show to be held June 16-22 at Le Bourget Airport. This is the Air Show held one year in Farnborough in England and the next in Le Bourget: the 2025 edition is planned, precisely in France.

Should you 'miss' those dates, however, Also in Le Bourget stands the Musee de L'aire et de L'Espace, where you can admire from the outside and inside a Boeing 747-200, a Douglas C-47 Dakota (also known as. DC-3) e two Concorde: one of the prototypes and an ex-Air France specimen.

There is also an airport in Europe similar to those in the California, Nevada and Arizona desert, where Hundreds of planes are 'parked' waiting to be dismantled or find a new user: is located in Teruel, Spain, between Valencia and Zaragoza. There are more than 200 parked airplanes.

The airport, however, is not regularly open for visits, and one must inquire by calling by phone or on the website about 'open door' dates, when the public is admitted to the aircraft apron.