Where Are The Powells?: Our first week in Germany

From Zurich we headed to Stuttgart in Germany.

First stop was the Porsche museum. The original museum opened in 1976 and was a relatively small and only big enough to hold around 20 exhibits (in rotation).

The new one opened in January 2009 and it takes you on an historic journey from the first Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton electric car (1898) and it is the oldest surviving construction that Ferdinand Porsche worked on.

From here the journey continues through time including various racing vehicles of the 1950s, the beginning of the Porsche 911 era in the 1960s, the 917 racing cars of the 1970s and a variety of vehicle concepts from the following decades: Porsche Carrera GT, Porsche 918 Spyder, Porsche 919 Hybrid.

It was good but we expected more.h

Our campground wasn't far from the Mercedes Benz museum so we visited that the next day and we were not disappointed. We were there for over 5 hours as the museum is on 9 levels. A lift takes you to the top floor and as you wind your way down through the levels, you discover the history of the car and the company

The museum celebrates the car invented by Carl Benz in 1886, it's history and the day to day life stories . There are over 160 vehicles ranging from the oldest cars ever built, their famous owners, racing cars and futuristic research vehicles.

Later that afternoon we tried to visit the Schwein (pig) museum, but despite getting there well before the last entry time, the ill-tempered curator told us it was closed and slammed the door. Instead, the nice waitress from the beer garden at the back invited us round for drinks, even though they weren't really open. After a few beers, we ate the cast.

The following day we walked along the river and into town. Here are just a few views of the city:

After our long walk we decided it was time for a light lunch so on our friend's recommendation ( thanks Blair) we went to Onkol Otto's for schnitzel. After looking at the 2 full pages of schnitzel, Mark had the XXL (with chips) and I chose the Lady schnitzel which came with a salad 😃. We weren't going to leave hungry, that's for sure.

Then it was on to Heidelberg the next day. It has one of the oldest universities in Europe, lots of old buildings, churches and bridges. We saw the funicular up to the ruins of Heidelberg Castle on Königstuhl hill, but decided the view was better from afar.