Stuttgart, Heidelberg and the Black Forest (cake!)

It has been a busy week. Sunday we went to the Mercedes-Benz museum. We had to catch a bus out to the museum as the train was not running due to the discovery of an unexploded WW2 bomb in parkland that the train runs through. It is an 8 floor building and you start your tour on the top floor and walk down through the exhibition. The early history of the company was particularly fascinating and the old cars beautifully restored. The period of the company during and after the war was of particular interest. Stuttgart was all but levelled because the car plant was manufacturing arms during the war. Anne found her new dream car - of course it is red.

From there we went to the TV tower which is somewhat of a feature in the area. The view from the observation platform was spectacular. It was also damn cold. We tended to look at the view from one side, the side where we were sheltered from the wind!

Anne spent Monday at the zoo. The zoo is particularly interesting because it is situated in the botanical gardens. As it is the beginning of spring the flowers were magnificent, tulips, daffodils, pansies and lots more. There was a green house full of orchids, azaleas and camellias of all shapes and sizes.

By the way, the animals weren’t that bad either, although lots of small enclosures not like the Melbourne zoo where the animals seem to have lots of room to roam around. Of course there was a kangaroo, emu and crocodile. The croc enclosure had an array of printed newspaper articles telling the stories of crocs dragging people in far north Queensland to their death! We have since discovered that these Aussie animals are being bred for their meat when we ventured for dinner to the Australian Bar and checked out the menu which had mostly these meats and, of course, the obligatory barramundi. God only knows where that came from!

Anne has also visited the Gallery of Modern Art, which was full of unrecognizable pictures, the Landesmuseum and the Kunstmuseum so is feeling very cultured. On Friday I went to Ludwigsburg, a beautiful old town about 20 minutes by train from Stuttgart. The palace is massive and the grounds are the size of the botanical gardens in Melbourne. The flowers were magnificent.

Friday night we were too tired to do anything so after having dinner at our favourite Italian restaurant, Vapianos - see Stephen doing what he does best!!, we had an early night in preparation for the big weekend ahead.

Saturday morning we walked across to the station and picked up our hire car - Rhona you will like this, a Mercedes A120 equipped with a GPS (English). This was the most vital piece of equipment that we needed for a trouble free weekend. We carefully listened to that voice, which would by the end of the weekend be driving us crazy, and headed for Heidelberg. I should add at this point that it was pelting down and we were wondering why on earth we were doing this excursion. By the time we reached Heidelberg the rain had stopped and we started to explore this very beautiful city. The very first place we saw was of course Woolies. We roamed down the pedestrian walk, to the accompanyment of the Hari Krishnas, to the castle where we took a guided tour. Stephen of course was still eating, this time a bratwurst. The rain then decided to come down again and we ended up driving home in the same weather conditions as we had started out.

Slept soundly then up bright and early to Skype Frankie for her first birthday party and to sing happy birthday along with all the other guests. We were sad we weren't there to share the day with everyone but were happy to see all the smiling faces and the birthday cake and most of all our beautiful grandaughter on her first birthday.

We were then off to the Black Forest for the day (20 degrees and sunny). Our first stop Baden-Baden. This is a very hip place to be, casinos, fabulous shops (top end of Collins Street) and fantastic cafes full of - you guessed it - black forest cake!! We chowed down as you can see - I (A) was not the only one eating by the way - someone else had his fair share. The town of Baden-Baden is a mixture of old and new with a very big spa area. We were surprised by the number of people flocking to the spas, which are huge complexes with massage facilities and big indoor and outdoor spas the size of swimming pools. By the way, the water was really hot!

We then drove through the region stopping to take photos of many 'willages along the vay' - can you see how my German is improving - as it was a beautiful day there were hundreds of bikers of the road, one in particular had one hell of a bike as you can see. We got home very tired but delighted by our travels. We are off to Prague next weekend so will post another report then.