Stuttgart

Today on my way to Stuttgart, I went to the reservation office at the train station to reserve my next few trips. There, I made an interesting discovery. If you reserve multiple train trips at once, the reservation fee becomes about 10 times cheaper than doing it separately. I will have to plan out the remainder of my trips then and reserve them now, way ahead of time.

Stuttgart is a busy city. The main walkway through the downtown is stuffed full of people throughout the day and everyone walks at a slower pace than you would like. The central parks are littered with people just sitting around, despite this being the middle of the work day.

Stuttgart is home to the Staadts gallery, a collection of modern art. I went mainly to see the Salvador Dali collection they advertise as having, but to my disappointment they only had one painting by him on display. A large portion of the museum was given over to Picasso and Matisse, and I did like Picasso's non-surreal work where he doesn't depict people like flatfish. However, this gallery was quite small and didn't take long to get through. Another lesson of the day: if a museum asks you what kind of student you are, the correct answer is "art".

On to the highlight of Stuttgart, for me anyway, the Mercedes-Benz museum. The museum is a piece of art in itself, a large cylinder without separate floors but instead a long spiral winding its way down the interior. Upon entering, you receive an ipod-like audioguide with a large LCD that displays audio track options. At any exhibit, you can choose between hearing about fundamental, technical, or social aspects of it. The museum was totally redone in 2006 and it sure is sharp and nicely presented. I spent a very long time here and by the end was ready to call it a day.

Tomorrow I leave the Stuttgart area to travel north to the Rhine cities.