Amphibious ships, cycling on water and cities with ceilings: Vintage postcards reveal how Victorians predicted future of travel

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A collection of weird and wonderful postcards dating back to 1900 show the Victorians were not far off in predicting the future of travel in the 21st century.

While most of the ideas remain totally unachievable in the modern world, some of the concepts are not dissimilar to the lives we lead today.

The moving pavement is one that we can credit the Victorians for - just about every airport now has travelators, and even a break to the North Pole isn't too far from reality, as more and more people begin to venture further afield for a more adventurous holiday.

It may not quite be mainstream yet, but trips to the North Pole are taken on my some explorers as we seek to broaden our knowledge

Ships that can go out to sea and then transform into a wheeled vehicle to carry on land are yet to make an appearance 

Travel on boats with glass lookouts that go underwater - the nearest we have is submarines

The 12 drawings are based on predictions made in 1900 as to how the world would look 100 years on, and they leave little to the imagination. 

Among the warped ideas are moveable houses, undersea ships and even a roofed city, each illustrated with a suitably unrealistic picture of how the idea would play out. 

However, a good weather machine remains as much of a pipe dream as it did a century ago, and people seem happier to travel by commercial aeroplane rather than an individual flying machine. 

Moveable brick/stone houses and buildings might not be quite right, but we do have mobile homes 

Hot air balloon rides to travel the world have been somewhat superseded by aeroplanes and trains

The postcards were the idea of Theodore Hildebrand and Son - a German chocolate company - pictured here is a weather machine 

A walled city, as predicted by the Victorians, might not work in this days and age with pollution from fumes being the biggest worry

But, in an era that invented the telephone, the light bulb and even the first ceramic toilet, the Victorians appear to have had a fairly good insight into what the future had to offer.

The postcards were the idea of Theodore Hildebrand and Son - a German chocolate company who decided to get in on the future-telling business with a crafty marketing campaign. 

For a short time, they slipped the colourful cards depicting theoretical life in the year 2000 into boxes of their sweets, predicting how a range of activities would be upgraded for the 21st Century.

This scene is not too dissimilar to us using paragliders and handgliders to get around and explore the landscape

Individual water travel was predicted by the Victorians, but this hasn't exactly taken off

Moving walkways to get around were predicted by the Victorians, and these are seen today in many of our airports

The Victorians looked ahead to how our states would be policed as well as how we would travel the world

The postcards predicted what life would be like in the year 2000