Day 30 - Mon 29 Jun: Stuttgart

June 28, 2015

Estimated km: 0; Actual km: 11; Total km: 1216

17-30deg, fine and warm, some cloud.

Brekkie was at the Main Station again; plenty of choice and reasonably priced. While the station itself is still completely operational it is also a massive building site. By looking at some photos they have up and from our limited understanding of German it looks like they are connecting the extensive underground rail network to the Main Train Station, reorienting the lines to through lines instead of dead-ends, building four new railway stations, integrating their station into the Italy to Paris fast train project, and moving all the railway lines underground to create a whole new area of open-space and a new suburb with 250 acres of re-claimed land. The underground and rail networks are currently separate. We've experienced this fully integrated public transport system in other cities and it works very well. Anyway in the meantime the area in and around the Station (roads, footpaths, walkways, buildings, parking areas) and some parts leading up to it are more like a train smash than a train station. We would love to see the finished product, the Germans don't muck about; when they build something it is first class. The project will be finished in 2021 and was so controversial that the local government held a referendum on it before proceeding. We climbed the Main Station Tower to get an overall perspective of the project and saw that each floor of the Tower had a display detailing the stages of the development. If the models and computer animations are any indication, it is going to be one heck of a finished product.

We then went wandering in the city, through parks, malls, platz, narrow streets and lane ways. While the bombs of WWII didn't spare much (bearing in mind some of the biggest war machine factories were located here) what looks old is probably re-constructed.

There was the Palace Square (Schlossplatz), Town Hall (Rathaus), various museums, a few nice churches etc. One church we went into, Stifts Church, the organist was belting out some heavy music (we suspect a rehearsal for a midday concert) on a massive pipe organ. Impressive and nearly overwhelming in the relatively confined space of the church. We also ended up in the house of G.W.F. Hegel (no not the swimmer) the famous German Philosopher, of course you knew that!! He was, and still is the local hero around Stuttgart. His old pad is full of stuff in German which we couldn't understand a word of.

Lunch was at our now favourite eatery, the Main Train Station, there's so much variety that you never have to eat the same stuff twice. Of course unless your name is Wendy and then you just eat McDonalds every lunch time.

About 3:00pm we met up with Mick and Kate and went for a ride as we were starting to get separation anxiety being away too long from our bikes. We checked out some nice quiet parks and gardens which is always nice when you're in a noisy city full of old men in very fast and high revving cars (mainly Mercedes and Porsche sports cars) who are trying to impress the young chics. We also went to check out the Botanical Gardens but found them behind the same fence as the Zoo, which was closing in 10 minutes. We thought we'd cracked it until we realised that we had got Parkhaus (a parking house for cars) mixed up with Park House (like a house in the Parklands - Hothouse)??? Never mind it was a good short ride. Finished with a stopover at a very large, but well-kept cemetery.

Dinner was at the food court of the huge shopping centre next door nearly. We BOO (Brought Our Own) wine and glasses from our room. Wendy had the Thai fried rice with chicken from a place purporting to cook Thai/Asian food and Greg had salmon and roast potatoes from Nordsee. Greg’s fish was good, but the Thai rice was not all that flash, but fed the worms.

We called in at the supermarket on the way home and purchased our brekkie.