My favorite picture from Peru

I don't have many pictures of me that I like, but this is one. They were on my camera when I got to Amsterdam.

A weekend in...Stuttgart (continued)

Huge apologize for the delay here...real life intruded on my blogging commitment. But we're still alive!

On Sunday morning, Margaret and I moved her back into a single room and then headed out to “Lubu” or Ludwigsberg. This is where she lived when she was in school in Stuttgart. We took the train and wandered through the town to the square. 

Since it was Sunday, there wasn’t much open and the town was pretty empty.  As we walked, Margaret pointed out the plaques in the sidewalk, which commemorated the Jews who lived in the building and when they died.  These three died in Auschwitz in 1944.  It was neat to see, but a sad reminder of that part of the German legacy.

We bought our tickets for the palace and realized that there was a festival being held on that day. I had to admit I was a bit disappointed, as we were there on a slightly grey day and I was hoping to get some shots of the palace that were devoid of people, which was completely impossible at Schönbrunn (see the Vienna post for the pictures I took). Oh well, still pretty!!

 I find the yellow of these Baroque palaces to be such a great color. It contrasts so well to the ornate gardens with the complex shrub designs and the riots of colorful flowers. Hmm...may be a thought for the next house? 

A few flowers, because I find them so much fun:

We still couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on at the palace, but were able to get up close to the back, on the other side of the tents.  

Inside was also decked out like you'd expect from a palace!

That chair next to the bed? Yep, that's the Queen's chamber pot...where  can I find a toilet like that one?!

And for fun, some pictures of me! Since those never get posted, thanks to Margaret for taking them...

Abi in this case is short for "Abitur" which are the exams that high schoolers take.

This one really goes with the protestors in the last post. All these signs are against the new train station...

Ah, one last fun thing  - This is one of the only pieces of East Germany that made it through to the present. He's a cute little guy!

Yum...lunch in Esslingen....where while we waited we watched a few hippies walk on a rope strung between two trees. =) They even let a little girl walk on it, with help from her mother of course.

View of the train yard from the top of the station.

Decorated with the map!

Margaret's friend, he invited us to the student party I talked about in the last post.

View of Stuttgart!

OK, after this weekend, Wes arrived and we had a weekend in Reims, and then a weekend in Budapest and Brussels....I'm behind but I'm still here!

A weekend in...Stuttgart (continued)

SATURDAY


Saturday morning we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and then headed off to the Mercedes Benz Museum. I spent a lot of time trying to decide if I wanted to go to the Benz museum or the Porche museum. In the end, since I'm not a huge car person, I figured that Benz had more history attached to it and that that would be the most interesting.

The whole weekend we traveled using a combination of the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn. We were lucky because that weekend there was a special on tickets so any ticket you bought was good for double time, so we bought a daily group ticket which was good for Saturday and Sunday.

The museum is located outside of the city a bit, but is easily reachable by public transportation.

The very first thing we saw was this...some sort of moon-rover / monster truck. The first thing I thought was that Mercedes and John Deere must have worked together.

The museum itself was so cool, a great record of the progression of the car over the years. The museum started at the top of the building and you worked your way down.

The very first thing you saw was a statue of a horse, with a quote from Kaiser Wilhelm II, "I believe in the horse. The automobile is no more than a transitory phenomenon." Shows that the museum director has a sense of humor!

I had a really fun time taking pictures of the Mercedes symbols on the cars, which will come as no surprise...

I was excited about the reflection on this one!

This was the car used by the last Emperor of Austria (whose palace I visited in Vienna). He lived out the remainder of his life in Germany after he refused to abdicate. Benz made him a special car with his crest on it.


























Other fun car pictures:

Hi Margaret!

 

Pope-mobile!

From the racing section of the museum

The museum was also in a really pretty part of the countryside, and you could see the vineyards on the hills from the museum. The stripes are from the skin on the outside of the building. The football fields (for you Americans out there, soccer) are where the Stuttgart team practices.

After the museum, we headed farther out from Stuttgart, to a smaller city, which is in the hills, just like the picture above. The city had a castle that had some great views.









The two church towers were built at different times which is why they have such different styles.

 

This part of Germany grows a lot of grapes. It was really similar to the area Kristin and I visited in Austria. 

And that was basically Saturday. We had ice cream for dinner. =) German ice cream is excellent! 

Sunday in the next post because I have to get some work done!