Weekend
9: October 10th – October 12th 2014
Friday, October 10th
Stevie
took a half day at work so we were able to meet up with Ed and Carol in
Stuttgart Germany Friday night. It was about a 4 hour high speed train ride
from Paris over to Stuttgart with 2 other stops along the way. We got in a
little late then took the commuter train over to the hotel
For dinner, the hotel worker suggested we go
to the Brauhaus of Schönbuch in Böblingen to kick off our Oktoberfest weekend in Stuttgart! We got
some very large beers and typical pork sausage dinners. Stevie had a lentil and
weiner meal called linsen and spätzle while Stuart got the schnitzel. The
brauhaus was so hoppin’ that we had to sit outside, but it was still nice out
and fun to be in the beer house atmosphere. Since the brewery was 20 feet
behind the brew house restaurant, the beer tasted very fresh and the bar had a
HUGE tap (we’re talking like 1 foot in diameter pipe header here!). There were also
a lot of big old copper kettles used for brewing.
Saturday, October 11th
We
got up at a decent time and had a fantastic breakfast at the hotel. We then
jumped on the commuter train with about half of Germany dressed in their
lederhosen and dirndl dress all ready for Oktoberfest. It’s actually the second
largest beef festival in the world and it’s called Cannstatter Volksfest in
Stuttgart. We stopped one stop after the beer festival to see the Mercedes
museum.
The museum was
really cool and actually a history museum as well as a car museum. The building
was arranged in the peace sign Mercedes logo so there were three sections of
the museum. You started on the top (7th) floor and worked your way
down a spiral along the three different sections of each floor. As you went
down to the next floor there were pictures of newspaper articles and big
moments in history that guided you into the next era of car stuff that was
about to come. The favorite section of the museum for Stevie was probably the
top and oldest section that told the history of Karl Benz. Benz is known as the
inventor who first patented the flat engine and is generally regarded as the
inventor of the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. There
were a lot of his first models of engines and transportation devices. Since he
made engines for a lot of stuff, the Mercedes logo is made of three pieces for
engines for land, air, and water. Stuart
really enjoyed how the museum paralleled the evolution of the automobile with
the history of the world.
After the museum,
we made our way over to the beer festival! It was pretty much a HUGE carnival.
There were five or six huge beer halls with carnival rides and German carny-food such
as pretzels (bretzels), bizarre
valentines type gingerbread cookies where you could get different sayings iced
on them, roasted candied nuts, and of course, bratwursts and all sorts of
sausage/hot dog stuff! We stopped at a beer tent for some local beer and a
bratwurst/hot dog thing in a large roll for lunch. After that we explored this
very oddly placed flea market that accompanied the festival as well as got some
candied nuts.
After we had
enough of the drunken costumed festival, we made our way into central
Stuttgart. We found the “Old Palace” or Altes Schloss, home of the newly renovated
castle and Landesmuseum Württemberg.
This old castle has parts from the 10th century. The ‘state’ that
Stuttgart is the capital of in Germany is called Wurttemberg, so the museum
tells the history of the region starting from the stone ages! The museum was
filled with artifacts such as weapons, jewelry, and pottery from various time
periods throughout the region. There was also a glass exhibit from 4 centuries,
a clock collection, and the crypt that holds Queen Olga, King Karl, their niece
Wera, her husband Duke Wilhelm Eugen and their son Carl Eugen buried under the
Palace Church.
After the museum we
all shared a nice bottle of red wine while we observed the people passing by on
their shopping rounds. We sat in the town’s main shopping area square (Schlossplatz)
that was lined by “the new castle” (Neues Schloss) where Duke Carl Eugen von
Wuerttemberg lived during the winters.
We made our way
back to the town the hotel was in and has a nice Italian dinner as we were all
sausage-ed and beer-ed out then had a nice sleep to get ready for the next day!
Sunday, October 12th
We
got up and had breakfast then made our way in the rental car to Liechtenstein
Castle, just about an hour or so drive from Stuttgart. Inspired by the book “Lichtenstein”,
Count Wilhelm of Wurttemberg built the castle based on the castle in the book
in 1840. We were able to get our own private tour of the castle where we saw
his hunting/drinking room, chapel, and great ballroom. The castle has a great
view of the cities in the surrounding valley. This castle was Wilhelm’s summer
home and the castle still belongs to his descendants. There are a lot of
interesting myths surrounding this castle and the various shot marks and broken
statues in the castle. There’s also a champagne glass as tall as Wilhelm given
to him by his bride on their wedding day. Champagne was his favorite drink and
three bottles of it could fit in the glass!
We were able to
walk around the “gardens” or surrounding fields of the castle as well as see
the church, smaller chapel and little armory in the castle’s property. It sure
was spooky with the all the fog in the valley surrounding the castle in the
morning.
After that castle,
we made our way to an older, more ruined castle of Hohenneuffen
after a minor detour on the way up the hill. The drive between these two
castles was gorgeous! Germany is so green and was starting to change colors for
the fall. There are a lot of rolling hills and trees in the area making it look
similar to Brown County Indiana.
Once we finally
got up the large hill to the castle, we had a great panoramic view of the
little neighborhood/cities below. The castle was built before 1140 and it
eventually became a military stronghold. But people don’t come to this hill to
see the castle, they come to eat and see the falcon show! There’s a restaurant
and a hot dog and fry stand in the castle ruins as well as a small company that
puts on a falcon show three times a day on the side of the castle. People also
bring picnics and just sunbathe or lay around the castle’s green areas enjoying
the local billy goats and view.
We got some lunch
up on the castle (hot dogs and something that Stevie can’t pronounce but it was
like processed meat and herbs in a potato pasta wrap that looked like ravioli
sitting in French onion soup). We also got some local apples from a guy selling
them on the way down from the castle. They were pretty good, and he was very
nice to let us know which apples not to pick because they had “würmen”.
We made our way
back to Stuttgart where Ed and Carol dropped us off at the train station in
time to grab a snack for the train and head back to Paris. Overall it was a
very fun, eventful yet relaxing weekend with family!
Up next weekend: Stevie’s birthday in
Berlin!!!! One of the best night life cities in Europe J
Plein de baisers (lots of kisses),
Stevie and Stuart
No comments:
Post a Comment