Date: 1-2nd September 2022
Travelled: 90 kms from Ulm to Stuttgart
Visited: Stuttgart and Mercedes-Benz Museum
Stayed: Stuttgart Camping, €12, N48.79390, E09.21870
Budget: 100 days @ €108 per day
Pam is off to the pool for another swim I still feel a little off so I give the pool a miss and ready the Hymer for the road. There was a long queue for the services here in Ulm yesterday so when I saw them free this morning I nudge the Hymer in and got the job done.
Whilst the distance to Stuttgart was relatively short the drive takes us two hours due to an extensive detour and a long traffic snag on the A8.
Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Stuttgart is a large sprawling industrial city of more than 5 million people. It’s the capital of the Baden-Württemberg state of Germany. Why are we here, well Stuttgart is the home to both Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, each has a world class museum here in Stuttgart. As we visited the Ferdinand Porsche Museum in Salzburg some years ago, it’s Mercedes turn today.
So once we’ve settled into the cities only campsite (certainly nothing special) we walk off along the Mercedesstraße passed Mercedes-Benz Arena to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. You know who owns the town. It’s a 15 minute walk.
The museum is an architectural masterpiece to be frank with you, but what else would you expect. We pay €6 each for our tickets (seniors) and go exploring.
After taking the futuristic elevator to the top the museum it is all downhill. In brief the information panels and audio guide detail the early lives and achievements of engineers Daimler and Benz, the merger of their business’ and the creation of Mercedes.
The museum only details the history of Mercedes-Benz up to 2002, obviously keeping a 20 year divide between history and today’s current fleet. Although the company has a dealership with all the latest offerings next door.
It was a wonderful afternoon of automobile history, even Pam thought it was fabulous. At one point I considered suggesting the Porsche Museum as well, but thought I’ll leave well enough alone.
After a quiet evening surrounded by German campers, next morning we walk up the Mercedesstraße once again but in the opposite direction to the Mercedesstraße tram stop. Soon enough a U2 is whisking us into the centrum. Cannot tell you the cost of a ticket as the machine had no language option and frankly we couldn’t work it out.
The photo below, looking across Schloss Platz, King Wilhelm’s Column in the foreground, the New Palace in the background. There must have been 50 police cars strategically located around the Schloss Platz today. There were groups with various national flags wandering about, so we decided to move along.
Pictured below the Stiftskirche (Collegiate Church) circa 15th century, but the inside is very contemorary. Its a lovely church hidden away as it is in a back street.
So we’ve done downtown Stuttgart, given there’s a Police car on every corner, we jump a U2 once again to Staatsgalerie (only one stop) . Our guide book highly recommends the Straatsgalerie Museum, so we pay our €7 pp entry fee and go find out ourselves.
The 1st level of the museum is all Old Testament, stories from the Bible, Rubens and the Dutch and German masters mostly 15-16th century. Another self portrait from Rembrandt and we’ve seen a few.
We walk the Staatsgalerie pretty well on our Pat Malone. There are security people in virtually every room and at one stage I have the distinct impression there waiting for us to go so they can nod off.
On the ground level its more contemporary. There’s an amazing collection of Picasso’s works, a few Dali’s and something Andy Warhol didn’t bother finishing (or at least that’s our opinion). There’s a single Pollock titled ‘out of the web’ which I shouldn’t need to caption.
The museum was well worth the effort, but it’s done. We walk back through the park into the centrum stopping for a very late lunch, before calling it a day and returning to the Hymer via the U2 once again.
Michael + Pam
2 thoughts on “Stuttgart, Germany 🇩🇪 2022”
Great report and I certainly feel at home hearing and seeing all and some familiar places We have farmers from just outside Stuttgart farming here in Esperance. Did they let you in with your Hymer into the city 🤔
Safe travels
Johannes
Stuttgart looks interested – or at least semi modern. I hope Pam got time to browse the shops. I expected to find a flurry of comments following your multi lingual marketing campaign to drive people to your blog.