Saturday, June 29th

Saturday, June 29th we spent the day at Stuttgart, we took the train to and from Heidelberg (40 minutes) and had a day trip, it was nice since we didn’t have to cart around luggage, just our back pack with camera and other basics. We took the bus from near our hotel to train station, missed the 10am train by about 2 seconds, it was leaving as we got to the platform, had about an hour to kill, got cash for the first time on our trip (so far we’d managed to just use funds we’d converted in Ohio!), and then got some breakfast. Breakfast consisted of a fresh baked pastry, and an apple, a Latte Machiato, and some form of Orange juice/drink that Aaron didn’t favor. We also during this time found a little shop called “Piccadilly: an English Shop” where they sold souvenirs of London and books in English, along with basic English staples, one of which was naan (too funny). The owners spoke proper English as well; we bought Jeremy Clarkson’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” from there and headed back to the station. The train we took was a high speed train, to the point where our ears were popping like we were on a plane! Weird, but a very effective way of travel. After we got to Stuttgart we went to the information station outside of the train station, figured out how to get to the Mercedes and Porsche museums using the local subway. We decided to hit the Porsche museum first because it was smaller and closed earlier.

We arrived at Porsche Place (yup that was what the stop was called off the subway!) and walked outside the dilapidated under construction station to Porsche heaven, there was a HUGE dealership, with about 60 cars, all makes, models, colors. We oogled it from the outside and headed towards the museum, it was all very nicely laid out, and very nice new buildings. The “museum” was free admittance, it was only about 20 cars, but it had some very cool history in those 20 cars, they had a black carrera GT, right next to it the had the 1998 24 hours of Le Mans winner, which I think was the high light of the whole day for Aaron to see. They had lots of cool stuff to buy as well. Aaron settled for some posters that came in a cool carrying box, we figure it evens out what would have been the cost of admission. They also had Porsche rally cars, and Indy Cars, and Indy car engines. Just a lot of history, right there for you take in.

There was also an area (off limits to us of course) where you design your own car, and then probably 3 months later get it in real life! Very cool, and very exclusive.

After we left the museum and walked past numerous factory gates headed back to the train station we realized that the construction that was occurring was a super pimp Porsche Museum, we took pix of the construction and maybe some day we can do a before and after compare.

We headed into the dealership that we passed on our way to the museum, and I find something I really liked, it was a little Porsche tea set, very cool, different, and a neat decorative item. When asking to buy it I was told they weren’t sold after 1:00PM on a Saturday but that I could come back on Monday. L I told the guy I was going to be in London on Monday and thanks anyway, figures, something I really like, I can see, and see the price tag for, but can’t buy!

After we got the train back to the main station, had a lunch of Pringles (we had been carrying with us) and sprite, we transferred lines to go to the Mercedes Museum, I had second thoughts about this one because I figured I would be overloaded by Lewis Hamilton stuff! The area of the Mercedes museum is what I can see Porsche is trying to go for with their new museum and construction, very neat sleek contemporary buildings, with a lot of presence. We got to the museum, got some lunch from the café, Aaron got steak with some type of fruity sauce, and I got Asian glass noodles with vegetables (thinking it would be a safe choice). Neither of our choices were too good, I should have done what I thought about doing which was order pasta with tomatoes sauce off the kids menu! The glass noodles were cool to look at they were like transparent headphone wires, but they were super doused or immersed in soy sauce, and just not very good.

After the sub par but needed meal we started to the museum, the museum is set up like the Guggenheim, where the whole building spirals, they send you by elevator to the tip of it and then you spiral your way down, it was about 8 floors. The top started with the beginning of the car, and you worked your way down the floors through the evolution of the automobile with significant historical markers to show the progress. We found out that antilock brakes were introduced/developed in 1978 (Aaron’s birth year) and Airbags in 1981 (my birth year)! Neat little facts like that all the way down 8 stories. On the second to last level we found the entire “shrine” to racing memorabilia, Formula 1 cars, Indy cars, rally cars, racing trucks, very neat! We took lots of pictures, to the point where about ½ way through the tour we had to go back to the coat check and get new batteries out of the backpack for the camera!

After the museum, we headed back to the main station, and got our signals crossed, we were both tired, but there was a desire to go “shopping” and a desire to get on a train and safely back to Heidelberg, it was about 6:15 when we got to the train station, and there was one leaving at 6:19, so we got on it. It wasn’t like the morning train a high speed straight to Heidelberg train, this was a regional one, where we would have to get off and make a connection. We ended up making it to the station we were to make the connection, but due to not knowing exactly what was going on, we missed our connection, and had to wait an hour for another one. That really sucked! We were both tired, hungry, and patience was low. We survived though, and figured after everything we’ve seen and done if that was as “off course” as we were going to get, not a bad deal.

We finally got on the right train, got to Heidelberg, took a cab to Liberty Pizza (near our hotel), which served “American style pizza” (mind you this is the only real meal we’ve had all day) it’s like your basic carry out papa johns or dominos and there happens to be a bench out side, we sit on the bench, watch the sun go down, and wait for our pizza.

This pizza shop happens to use Smart Cars for its delivery vehicles, which I thought was pretty cool, they were all white smarts about 4 of them, which would come and go with pizza. We sat through about 3-4 different runs from each of the cars because after the pizza was done, we sat on the bench and ate. We were happy, fed, and together, what more could we ask for? It was a pretty great last meal in Germany, thank you very much.

The funny part while we were sitting there was the reactions of the delivery people, like, uh, you’re sitting there eating pizza? : ) One of the drivers came out to get to his smart, and since they all look the same, he didn’t recall which one was his, so he stood there for a minute, puzzled, and finally just got out his key fob and used the remote to figure out which was his. It was amusing. Or maybe we were just loopy after a long day.

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel, it was about 10:30 and we knew we were in for a long day today so we called it a night. All packed, and ready to head back to English speaking London, through un English speaking France, on super high speed trains!