Day one – arrived mid-afternoon after a leisurely train ride, but DB really needs to step up on their catering efforts. A five and a half hour train ride and I could not get a cappucino :-). Luckily, there is a café/beer garden just outside the station, in the large park dominating the top part of Stuttgart and goes all the way up to the river Neckar and the zoo at the other end, so that was my first stop, and the sustenance of some cafeine turned out to be more necessary than I could have imagined.
After the Siberian cold in Berlin, the temperature in Stuttgart was heavenly, but in every other way, it is worse than I thought. The construction of the central station, which seems to be never-ending, and road-works around it, is splitting the city in two and makes it difficult to navigate, especially for pedestrians. I was able to see my hotel from the station, but had the choice of either climbing A LOT of stairs with a relatively heavy suitcase, or walking about half a km to avoid those stairs :-).
Having overcome those obstacles and unpacked, I spent the rest of the day thinking about photos for my current photography course (about parks – everything about them, their surroundings, their uses, …..), and took some seriously boring photos. It was once again confirmed to me how much I dislike a) formal parks, and b) photographing people (in fact, I have absolutely no interest in the latter :-), but I’ll try).
Why do I dislike formal parks? First of all, they look ridiculous and totally artificial the way they are overly groomed and kempt, but most importantly, they are utterly unsustainable, using plants that are not native and therefore need too much water and fertilizer, and the same thing goes for those stupid lawns. On top of it all, after watering and fertilizing to make the lawns grow, they spend fossil fuels to mow them every five minutes. Insane. PLUS, as I was also reminded, some parks – still! – have those ugly fountains, completely ignoring the fact that water is fast becoming a scarce resource without which there will be no life on earth. (Not that it will be a great loss when humans become extinct, but a darn shame for all the other living beings).
Anyway, I had dinner in a very nice Vietnamese restaurant which I stumbled over completely by chance. It is upstairs so quite difficult to find from the street. The only reason I am not recommending it 100 percent is their wine list. The wines were mostly from overseas. Unlike the restaurants I visited the rest of the week, which contained wines from the region. There is no reason to import wines from the other side of the world when Germany produces good wines by now. And even though wine is not the most obvious beverage to eat with Asian food, there is something about many German wines that make them suited to accompany food from these parts of the world.
Day two – change of plans since thunderstorms and torrential rains was forecast, so not ideal for spending the day outdoors taking photos.
I went to Staatsgalerie which as one of their temporary exhibitions currently features Cindy Sherman. Although I know she is a superstar, I have never been a big fan. But this exhibition certainly confirmed her talents as a make-up artist. By the way, that museum is just as hopeless to navigate as the city itself.
The thunderstorms never materialised and the rain even took a break in the early afternoon.
Dinner in another excellent Vietnamese restaurant, Hanoi in Neckarstraße.
Day three – the large park in Stuttgart, including Wilhelma.
Believe it or not, but the large park starting in the city centre and ending with the zoo/botanical garden is as chaotic as the city and the Staatsgalerie. Construction, road blocks, reroutings, bad signposting …… including inside the zoo.
By the way, did I ever mention I love trees?
And then there were some very photogenic pelicans. If I did not know better, I would say they also enjoyed posing for the camera. So about the following complete overload of photos, bear with me – I am just experimenting:
Dinner in a very good Thai restaurant. I can’t remember the name right now, but it was in Urbanstraße, and the only Thai restaurant in that street.
Day four – birdwatching event with NABU Stuttgart.
A lovely walk around a lake and a bird reservation, and afterwards, I walked a little bit along the river Neckar on the way back.
Although I did not manage to take many photos, we saw many birds, including my first Kingfisher in the wild.
Dinner in Prince of India in Urbanstraße. Kind of OK.
And now to the reason why Stuttgart, and why right now:
Day five (Labour Day, apropos of nothing at all) – a phototour with Go2Know to what for some strange reason, the Germans call a “lost place” – which none of them are. The rest of the world calls them “abandoned”, which is what they are.
In this case, a disused paper factory – “die alte Papierfabrik Scheufelen” – just across the street from Oberlenningen train station. Very quick and easy to get to from Stuttgart – S-Bahn to Kirchheim and a regional train to Oberlenningen – once actually IN the S-Bahn station, of course :-). Getting TO the S-Bahn station is a nightmare, as is navigating the entire area around the central station.
I understand I only saw a fraction of the factory, but patience is not my Spitzenkompetenz, and neither are my orientation skills, and the area is huge, nor my ability to see in the dark, so I returned to Stuttgart feeling I had seen more than enough and taken quite a few photos.
The train ride was very pretty, and I can see why Oberlenningen is a popular starting point for hikers.
Re the last photo: Spotted what must be a Hundertwasser oeuvre from the train.
Went back to restaurant Hanoi in Neckarstraße for dinner. If I ever get to go back to Stuttgart, I will definitely visit again.
Last day – walkabout in Stuttgart. Firs stop brunch at Poffers. Nice idea, and an interesting choice of food with many vegan and vegetarian options, but the food tasted strangely stale. Also, the music indoors was very loud, and the guests on the patio also, so the advantage of being situation on a quiet sqare was kind of lost. Also, smoking on the covered patio was allowed, as is common in Germany. To me, an area that is covered does not count as outdoors, smoking-wise), but that is obviously just me.
I then proceeded across the park to the relatively new central library. Very attractive, light and airy, and welcoming, with a café on the top floor and a sun terrace. The café, which I had read about, was closed without any explanation why, and in any case it did not look as if anything to eat was ever available, so don’t plan a pitstop there.
The rest of the walk, apart from some general photos, I focused on stairs (no excuse not to stay fit in Stuttgart), statues, and those stupid fountains. I was shocked at the number of relatively new fountains there. Do people not realise how water is fast becoming a scarce resource (in which case what planet have they just dropped down from?), or do they just not care?
I had decided not take any more nature photos this time around (even I get tired of those from time to time ….) but then in one of the parks, I came across a bird I had never seen, let alone photographed, before. It turns out to be a “Wacholderdrossel”, in English Fieldfare, in Danish apparently a “sjagger”.
Also a couple of photos from the never-ending nightmare that is Stuttgart21. I guess they mean 2021.
(Photo number six: He is thinking: Jesus H. Christ – not another f…… fountain. Photo number eight: I did not take it personally ;-)).
On my last evening in Stuttgart, I treated myself to a meal in Michelin-starred Hegel Eins. Not that I need an excuse to totally indulge, but if I did, it would be that I am nine months cancer free, feel great, and that I did not really get to celebrate my 70th birthday last November because I was in a Reha clinic at the time :-). I thoroughly enjoyed the meal but only wish I had walked a little bit less and taken time for a bit of a nap before going there.
