Czechs planned 'Adriatic tunnel'

Officials in the former communist Czechoslovakia had planned to build an underground rail link under Austria to the Adriatic, a Czech newspaper says.

The 410km-long (255 miles) tunnel would have drastically shortened the journey to the seaside for the landlocked country, Lidove Noviny reports.

The earth from the excavation would be dumped in the sea to form an artificial Czechoslovak island - Adriaport.

But the 1975 plan never got off - or under - the ground, the newspaper says.