Land of wasps

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Before visiting Stuttgart I literally knew nothing about the place. 3 days later I know it is centre of Mercedes Benz and Porsche production, it has San Francesco style hills that snap the calf muscles and it is the centre of the wasp universe. Honestly, I have never seen so many wasps in my life, along with flies, spiders and other insect life…not something you find the tourist brochures boast about. My hotel was 15 minutes by S-bahn out of the city centre, in the middle of an industrial park, which as I arrived on a Sunday was closed and silent. The train was right outside the hotel though so it was a very useful place to stay. Stuttgart itself really doesn’t have a tremendous amount to offer someone who isn’t working here as it lost most of its historical centre in World War 2 and is very much being rebuilt and redesigned still. Lots of the city is a large construction area replacing the rapidly erected, yet poor quality buildings from the late 40's. Opposite the main station is the start of the long shopping street which everything is built around. It’s your usual high street filled with shops, cafés and lots of bench areas to sit. The central recreational area is half way along the street with a large garden and the new palace which is a beautiful old house that various Dukes used to live in. The back of this takes you to a huge garden called the U garden and it stretches a number of kilometres up to join the Neckar Park. The new opera house and a small lake are also part of the garden and it makes the city centre seem really spacious. The other side of this is the old palace which is now a museum and gallery and a beautiful old church and the market hall. This is the oldest part of the city to have survived bombing and is charming. It’s from here I picked up a bus to sightsee the wider city areas. Being set in a valley with much of the city of steep hills means you need some help in being guided around as you wouldn’t just stumble across things as you do in other cities. The bus had two routes, one for the hilltops which I went on first. It drops you at Marienplatz where you can pick up a type of funicular tram which goes to the top of the highest hill, it’s a strange 3 compartment tram with a large metal attachment at the front back which looks like it is pushing it, and this is where bikes are stored. The gradients on the hill are so steep that no wonder people don’t walk up them. I took the tram to the very top where there is a small suburb and some fabulous views over the valley, particularly the hillsides which are still used as vineyards, even in the middle of a busy commercial city. I picked the bus up again and it went over the hills and to the first TV tower in Europe (closed to the public at the minute), the cemetery at the top of another funicular (closed to the public at the minute) and the park where they have tourist steam train rides (yes you guessed it, closed to the public at the minute). The other route of the bus went through the museum and cultural quarter and into the Neckar valley to the huge park, the Mercedes Benz arena, museum and Porsche museum as well as the suburb Bad Cassatt which used to be a separate town and houses the zoo and botanical gardens. Stuttgart is not somewhere I have any desire to visit again; it’s very much a business city with nothing much to see, but an experience none the less.

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Photos

stuttgart,
Memorial to the victims of National socialism

stuttgart,
Mercedes Benz museum