"Stuttgart: Horses and Horsepower " a Stuttgart Travel Page by antistar

Stuttgart was a city I'd wanted to return to for many years. It was the first place outside my own country that I had ever set foot, but I'd not spent more than a moment in the place before I was whisked off to Tubingen, to visit my sister who was studying at the university there. It had been my first trip abroad, at the age of 16, and I was amazed by how different everything was. My memories were of sausage stalls, officious officials and, for Stuttgart, the Mercedes Benz symbols that seemed to be everywhere. As with all first memories of goggle eyed travel to foreign climes, the emotion of strangeness was retained, even if the memories faded.

Stuggart is the home of both Mercedes Benz and Porsche, and is something of the Detroit of Southern Germany, except with being home to these two grand marques, it is one of the richest cities in Europe, rather than one of the poorest. The town is synonomous with cars, and even the city's emblem, a black stallion on a yellow background hinting to its earlier incarnation as a stud farm, is almost identical to that other world famous car manufacturer, Ferrari. As I'd already sampled the sausage, this time I was going to treat myself to the sights of two of Europe's finest motor museums, at the factories of Mercedes Benz and Porsche.

It's little surprise, then, that the highlight of my trip to Stuttgart was the Mercedes museum. That's not to say Stuttgart didn't have anything else to offer; far from it. The city centre itself is a delight to wander around, and retains much of its character despite the heavy bombing it received during the last great war. It also has a number of great attractions on the outskirts of the city, like the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) and the palace of Schloss Solitude. There's so much to see and do around the city, and it is such an important part of the German landscape, that it has to be considered one of the top destinations for anyone visiting Germany.