olena
<font color=green>Emerald Angel<br><font color=mag
- Joined
- May 12, 2001
- Messages
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MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - The naked sunbathers who once filled Munich's central park on warm summer days are turning their backs on Germany's famous open-air celebration to nudity.
Officials worried that the new-found prudery will damage the international reputation of the park and cause a drop in tourism to the Bavarian city have appealed to local sun-lovers to come back and leave their clothes behind.
"We've lost many of the nudists who made the English Garden a special place," said park director Thomas Koester. "Especially good-looking young women and men who made it such an attraction aren't here as much anymore. It's becoming a real problem."
Nude sunbathing has long been widespread in Germany, a country where the Free Body Culture (FKK) movement founded in the early 20th century succeeded in taking much of the smut out of nudity.
But nowhere have the nudists been more prevalent than in Munich's English Garden.
During the hot summer days of the 1970s and 80s some 14,000 nudists visited the leafy 890 acres park each day -- a tenth of the 140,000 daily visitors.
Today the number has dropped to less one percent, or perhaps at most a thousand.
"Before you would see whole families wandering around naked or young nude people sitting in the beer gardens here," Koester said. "Society has become more prudish. You don't see as many attractive young Munich girls anymore. I hope they'll come back."
Drawn by tour guides published in countries where public nudity is non-existent, visitors from Japan, the United States, Britain, Italy, France and Spain flock to the park to ogle the bare German flesh.
A number of hotels on the English Garden even advertise their rooms with clear views of the nude sections.
"A lot of tourists from Asia but also England, Italy and Spain go out of their way to include stops in Munich to see the nudists," said Koester. "These people come from cultures where they even wear bathing suits when they go into a sauna.
"With fewer nudes it could hurt tourism," he added. "You can sit in a beer garden anywhere. The special fascination here is that you might bump into some naked people in the beer garden or walking along on a path."
LOL.....They only lament the lack of "good-looking" sunbathers.
Officials worried that the new-found prudery will damage the international reputation of the park and cause a drop in tourism to the Bavarian city have appealed to local sun-lovers to come back and leave their clothes behind.
"We've lost many of the nudists who made the English Garden a special place," said park director Thomas Koester. "Especially good-looking young women and men who made it such an attraction aren't here as much anymore. It's becoming a real problem."
Nude sunbathing has long been widespread in Germany, a country where the Free Body Culture (FKK) movement founded in the early 20th century succeeded in taking much of the smut out of nudity.
But nowhere have the nudists been more prevalent than in Munich's English Garden.
During the hot summer days of the 1970s and 80s some 14,000 nudists visited the leafy 890 acres park each day -- a tenth of the 140,000 daily visitors.
Today the number has dropped to less one percent, or perhaps at most a thousand.
"Before you would see whole families wandering around naked or young nude people sitting in the beer gardens here," Koester said. "Society has become more prudish. You don't see as many attractive young Munich girls anymore. I hope they'll come back."
Drawn by tour guides published in countries where public nudity is non-existent, visitors from Japan, the United States, Britain, Italy, France and Spain flock to the park to ogle the bare German flesh.
A number of hotels on the English Garden even advertise their rooms with clear views of the nude sections.
"A lot of tourists from Asia but also England, Italy and Spain go out of their way to include stops in Munich to see the nudists," said Koester. "These people come from cultures where they even wear bathing suits when they go into a sauna.
"With fewer nudes it could hurt tourism," he added. "You can sit in a beer garden anywhere. The special fascination here is that you might bump into some naked people in the beer garden or walking along on a path."
LOL.....They only lament the lack of "good-looking" sunbathers.
