Saturday, October 25, 2008
What to do with just one full day in Stuttgart? Just down the road from our hotel is the Mercedes-Benz Museum. The Museum is next to the factory and less than a half-mile from our hotel. Our hotel is on the aptly named Mercedesstraße (Mercedes Street).
The Museum is huge! (I am writing this a day late—currently on the train towards Frankfurt, and our train just hit 250 km/h!). Once a ticket is purchased, the elevator takes visitors to the 8th floor. From there, work your way down a helix all the way back to the ground floor. The museum is full of automobile history, with brief mentions of other historical points-in-time so visitors will be able to associate automotive history with contemporary events.
We were in the museum five hours. Because we wanted to see something else in Stuttgart, we made quick work of the last third of the museum. Careful study of the exhibits could easily make this museum an eight-hour visit.
After the museum, we headed to the old town square of Stuttgart. It is complete with the old city office complex, big fountain in the middle of the square, and several statues around the perimeter. We arrived there about sundown to find a boisterous festival welcoming winter and the Christmas season.
The festival was called Wintertraum and the apparent focus of it was Eismarchen, which apparently means a story about ice (Eis) for children. The skating rink was in full swing with musical accompaniment in the form of American Big Band and pop music played on the loudspeakers. The inexperienced skaters held on to various figures—penguins and dwarves—that had handles sticking out of their ears so they could stay vertical on the ice. The vendors were selling hot wine (our new favorite), hot chocolate, bratwurst, wieners, and, of course, all manner of alcohol-laden beverages. The event was quite festive and attended by all manner of folk: families with young children, teenagers in love, and couples of all ages.
The town square of Stuttgart is the center point of the main street through the city, Köenigstraße (King Street, so we felt right home). The famous part of the street is 1km long and is lined on both sides with store after store after store. Many of the brand names would be familiar to our American readers. Regardless of what the news tells you, we can affirm that the economy is booming in Stuttgart, at least on this Saturday night.
Phone calls home from Prague were a challenge, but are easy from Germany. From Köenigstraße we called home to the kids. Just as we started talking with Nancy, an accordion player set up shop about 15 meters away. It made for a challenging phone conversation but Nancy enjoyed the accordion music. Emily—who we suspect was out partying—did not answer our repeated calls.
Best birthday wishes to our dear Josephine, who turns 2 today!
Tomorrow morning will find us on the train to Amsterdam with a change of train in Frankfurt.