Stuttgart

Living in Zurich presents numerous opportunities for exploring cities in the surrounding region, not only by plane, but also by train. I booked a train ticket to Stuttgart for the weekend. I was off to explore the great car museums and plenty of other things that the city had to offer.

Saturday

Arrived at the Zürich HB Main Station, and realized that my 7:35 PM train was 30 minutes late. This meant a missed connection in southern Germany, as I needed to change trains once. That connecting train was the last one for the night from the city of Singen to Stuttgart.

I pondered simply going back to my apartment to sleep and try again in the morning. After googling a bit I found a different option going via Heidelberg, north of Karlsruhe, that would get me to Stuttgart just before 1 AM. Immediately I went into the nearby ticket office. As this meant riding a totally different route, the ticket office personnel gave me the option of paying for that new ticket, or riding my original ticket for an arrival well past 2 AM, with multiple connections in other towns in Southern Germany. Yikes. My original train would’ve gotten me there at 10:45 PM. I decided to stay with the original ticket, as it seemed pointless to pay a full new ticket price simply for the one hour difference.

When I got to the platform, a railroad worker asked me where I was going. Having answered Stuttgart, she said that I could simply do the routing that would get me there at 1. There was no need to get a new ticket. Phew. She suggested changing trains in Karlsruhe, and showed me a relevant connection. The train from Zurich was a night train bound for Berlin. Evidently the ticket controllers in Germany had been informed of the Stuttgart-bound passengers changing to that train.

The train left Zurich for Basel on time, then left Basel on time as well. As soon as we entered the first two German stations, we picked up over 20 minutes of delay. Perhaps because this was a sleeper train, there were never any speaker announcements made. I quickly looked up alternatives as I knew I wouldn’t be making my connection in Karlsruhe either. Did I need to spend a night elsewhere in Germany? Fortunately, the connection that I had found on Google back at the Zurich Main Station several hours back was still relevant. In Heidelberg, the next stop after Stuttgart, there was a train to Stuttgart. Since I got to Stuttgart at 1 AM, I was very grateful that I had booked a hotel right by the train station.

Sunday

Due to my late arrival and the change in Europe from DST to “summertime” occurring in the early hours of Sunday, I had to set my alarm later than I wanted to get a decent amount of sleep. After breakfast at my hotel, I walked over to the train station, to get to the Mercedes-Benz museum.

On the “island” between the two pedestrian crossings, a plain-clothes police officer asked me for ID. I had just knowingly crossed a red light, what Americans call “jay-walking”. There was no traffic on one side of the street at all. I do this all the time. Seriously, if there’s very obviously no cars to hit you, what’s the point in waiting to cross? He asked if I had just come from a night club (it was 9:30 AM…). Eventually he let me go, probably realizing that I was simply a visitor. As a German-speaker I didn’t exactly pull off the “dumb tourist” card.

I took the train down to the Neckarpark train station, named after Stuttgart’s nearby sports stadium. From there a bus took me to “Mercedes-Benz World”. Mercedes-Benz’s predecessor companies invented the automobile in Stuttgart, and they’ve had a factory there for more than a hundred years. Next to the Mercedes-Benz factory complex is a museum jam-packed with vehicles from throughout the company’s legacy. Car enthusiasts could spend all day here, but even with a casual interest, the museum will still take up a few hours of your time. The collection is chronologically displayed, starting with the 1886 models that started it all. The Daimler Motor Carriage, the first powered four-wheel vehicle, and the Benz Patent Motor Car, the first gasoline-engined automobile. It was a revolution occurring at the breakneck top speed of 16 km/h (10mph).

Other highlights include pre-WWII aircraft engines and the 300 SL Coupé with its “seagull’ doors.

The Pope Mobile is also there, as well as Mercedes-Benz’s AMG-tuned limited editions, and race cars.

There’s even the T 80, a concept from 1940 that was supposed to do up to 600 km/h (370 mph) thanks to 3000 horsepower. All of that power would come from remodeled aircraft engines. Designing a car with aircraft engines at the start of World War II was daring, but impossible. Mercedes-Benz certainly developed plenty of aircraft engines at the time, but those were all going to bombers and fighters of the Luftwaffe. The T 80 never progressed past the concept stage, even though one prototype was built.

For its role in World War II, the Mercedes-Benz factory paid costly. It was reduced to rubble in 1944 by an Allied bombing raid.

After visiting the birthplace of the car, I took a train back to Stuttgart for lunch at German restaurant. Ochs’n Willi serves a “Schwabian Plate” with a mix of regional specialities. With just two days in Stuttgart it was a great opportunity to sample more of the local cuisine.

Just a couple of hundred meters away from the Restaurant was the Landesmuseum, or the State Museum for Baden-Württemberg, the German federal state where Stuttgart is the main city. It has decent exhibitions detailing the history of the region. Starting with ancient settlers until its formation as a Duchy, then Kingdom, and absorption into unified Germany.

The crown of King Wilhelm I, who reigned the Kingdom of Württemberg from 1816-1864.

Then I went back to a nearby train station, in order to get to the Porsche Museum. Not as large as the Mercedes museum, but quite impressive in its own right. Porsche was founded in Stuttgart as well, and also has a large factory here. Featuring a chronological presentation of their vehicles, starting in 1898, the highlight of the museum is of course it’s iconic 911 series. The 1939 Type 64 that became the root of all following Porsche designs is presented here.

The museum also houses some of their newer models, such as the limited edition hybrid 918 Spyder.

There’s also several of their race cars, some of which won numerous titles at Le Mans. At several points during my visit to the museum, I could hear loud engine noises. I wondered where these originated, then I found this:

I continued to the other side of Stuttgart for a photo stop at the Grabkapelle Württemberg, even though the interior was closed for the winter. The Grabkapelle (burial chapel) was built in 1819 after King Wilhelm I of Württemberg’s Russian-born wife Katharina passed away.

After having seen the chapel, I went back to the city center for some dinner at Alte Kanzlei. For appetizer I had a very special regional dish – pancake soup! You’re probably thinking how that was possible. The pancake was cut in pieces, as you can see below:

Monday

I was pondering getting up very early to go on a long day-trip from Stuttgart, but decided against it. Two days in a row of minimal sleep wasn’t so appealing. I always have this dilemma. I don’t finish exploring until late at night, and usually want to get up early to start again.

Checked out of the hotel, then went on the regional train to the Stuttgart suburb of Ludwigsburg, home to two baroque castles.

The main castle is the Residenzschloss, which came out of the idea to build a place to overnight at the favorite hunting grounds of the dukes and nobles. Construction began in 1704, and in the following one hundred years it became a royal residence. It was ambitiously expanded to compete with castles in the neighboring regions, and earned the nickname the “Versailles of Swabia”.

After visiting areas of the castle only accessible as a guided tour (no pictures), and a pair of exhibitions inside other parts (no pictures either), I continued towards the castle gardens. The castle gardens are occupying vast areas to the east and south of the castle itself. Some of it have been turned into an aviary.

The prettier parts of the gardens are just south of the castle itself.

North of the castle is a property belonging to a different castle, the Schloss Favorite and its Favoritepark. Despite the name, it’s not a visitor’s favorite, as the castle is currently closed for repairs. The park surrounding the castle is open however. It’s a small nature reserve with wildlife including deer and mouflon (horned sheep). You are not allowed to stray too far from the walkways, but in plenty of places the wildlife comes quite close, even crossing the walkway itself.

On the way to Ludwigsburg I took a city bus to the Residenzschloss, but I decided on simply going back towards the train station on foot. It presented a chance to explore the old town center of the city.

I got on a regional S-train back to Stuttgart, exiting at the Stadtmitte train station. At Stadtmitte, a recorded announcement was played alerting that an organized group of beggars were “doing their rounds” at the station, and passengers should “be very careful”. I’ve seen hundreds of beggars at several dozen train stations over the years, but this is the first time I’ve heard a PA announcement about them. Even more peculiar was that these beggars weren’t threatening at all. Just a few old run-of-the-mill Eastern Europeans sticking their hands out, saying “one euro?”.

Speaking of pocket change, at this point I was running quite low on cash. With just a few hours to go until my train back to Zürich, I didn’t think I would need more cash. Particularly because I was in one of the largest cities in Germany. Even though I will without doubt need euros again at some point, I didn’t feel like incurring fees for withdrawing cash abroad. I figured that a couple of coins would be more than enough to get me through the afternoon. How wrong I was.

I settled on Platzkirsch for lunch, a well-known but cheap place in the heart of Stuttgart. To my surprise, they didn’t accept payment by card, neither debit nor credit. So I was off to the nearest ATM to fetch some cash to pay the restaurant bill. This is actually not too surprising in Germany. They are very innovative in many fields, but they are far behind the times when it comes to accepting credit cards generally. The restaurant wasn’t the only place in Stuttgart that didn’t take cards.

After returning to the restaurant to pay (hey, I’m an honest person), I continued exploring some of Stuttgart’s older city center. There’s a few squares with statues of former state leaders. There’s also the Stiftskirche, the main Lutheran church in the city, where I stopped by to have a look inside. The structure is originally from the 15th century, but WWII bombing raids and more recent reconstruction have resulted in a more modern interior.

I also stopped by the Markthalle, a large hall of food stands selling an international range of fresh products. There’s plenty of snacks there too, but having just had lunch, I didn’t try any. I needed to leave room for an early dinner anyway. My 3-hour train to Zurich would leave at 6:29 PM, with no restaurant train car on it.

Not too far north of the Markthalle is the southern edge of the long Schlossgarten. The Schlossgarten are castle gardens belonging to the former residential castle in Stuttgart. The castle now houses government offices for the state of Baden-Württemberg, where Stuttgart is the capital. Inside the gardens is a modern glass rectangle housing the state parliament.

My visit to Stuttgart concluded at the Turmforum, inside a tower on the corner of the train station. It has a few exhibitions relating to the Stuttgart 21 construction project, which is redesigning the main train station to move the train platforms underground. Unless you’re from Stuttgart, the views outside of the windows of the Turmforum tower are more interesting. But of course, as the exhibitions are all indicating, the train station is undergoing construction. So none of the views are without construction cranes.

Ending at the train station was of course no coincidence. I did need to get my trolley back from my hotel, but that was only a couple of blocks away. At the train station I had a quick portion of fish ’n’ chips for dinner. It was time to get on the InterCity train that would take me back to Zurich. Unlike my train ride on Saturday night, this one was punctual.