Archive - Jun 9, 2008

So since Justin was in meetings all week, I had a lot of time to myself. I took that time to explore Stuttgart on a couple of walking tours. The walks always took me up into the hills and provided a lot of historical information about Baden-Württemberg. I walked past the old castle, the new castle, a couple of palaces, lots of viewpoints, climbed a ton of stairs, wandered thru a bunch of parks and past lots of beautiful old homes. I really enjoyed walking along the Blaue Weg (Blue Path), which was the first Swabian Walking Associations footpath that went as far as the Black Forest.

I also visited some museums. The first one was the Württembergishes Landesmuseum of Stuttgart. This was in the old castle of Stuttgart, which was most recently rebuild in 1969 and now houses the "State Collection of National Antiquities." The best of which was glass from the Egyptians, the oldest deck of European cards dating from 1430, celtic burial objects, and the crown jewels of Württtemberg and the Russian gold service of Queen Katharina. Very sparkly and very pretty.

Another day I went to the State Museum of Natural History at the Rosenstein Palace Museum. This museum was located inside a beautiful building and surrounded by rose gardens. Inside was a collection of mammals and lots of information on native species. Sadly I did learn that the last bear seen in Baden-Württemberg, which includes the Black Forest, was over 200 years ago. And that wolves had not been seen even longer. Kind of upsetting to me that the home of Grimms fairy tales no longer has bears and wolves in it.

The third location I visited was Ludwigsburg, this was further outside of the city, but well worth the trip. Ludwigsburg is home to a magnificent palace built between 1704 and 1733, which includes 452 rooms in 18 buildings. And the majority of furniture and wallpaper is as it once was as Ludwigsburg did not receive any damage from the war. The place is drippingly gorgeous, and is often compared to Versailles. Unfortunately it was raining when I was there, so I didn't even get a chance to wander about the lush gardens. I don't know all the history on this place, but it was originally built as a hunting lodge for the Duke, then expanded as a home for his mistress. Then built into more of a palace when Napoleon made him a King.

Finally on Friday I visited the Mercedes-Benz Museum. I thought I should go there, cause its what everyone does, and this is where it all started, but I didn't think I would like it all that much. And, now I am the first to admit that I was wrong, it was really fun. The building itself was pretty cool, you start on the top and work down beginning with the first engine and car and you end up in a Mercedes-Benz showroom, just in case you wanted to place an order (think of it as a high end museum gift shop). I learned a lot, saw lots of pretty cars. Picked out a couple that I thought would be fun to own (Dad, let me know if you are having a hard time figuring out my birthday gift, I have some suggestions for you). The museum is built as part of the plant, so from the windows I could watch cars being road tested. I got to see one of the popemobiles, and lots of winning race cars.

The rest of the time I spent relaxing on grass or in park benches. It was a great place to people-watch, listen to German, and read. If you ever get the chance to visit southern Germany, I wouldn't miss it.

• Mercedes-Benz museum
• Ludwigsburg Palace on Wikipedia

We are back, and have lots to update on. Germany was fun and I really enjoyed it there. The reason we went to Stuttgart was because Justin had 'geek week' and I just went to go explore.

First full day there, we spent some time gathering information at the tourist office and walking around the parks. Stuttgart has lots of big open green spaces even in the downtown aspect, and its full of paths. Everyone seemed to be outside either walking, biking or just chilling on the grass. We walked to the Wilhelma botanical garden and zoo first. This zoo was much larger then the one in Fuengirola and had lots more animals. Not to mention that it was also a botanical garden so there were lots of greenhouses to walk in.

There was a great primate section, and seemed to be built around the same time as the great ape house in the national zoo, it had about the same layout, including indoor and outdoor space for all the groups. We saw a large bonobo group, maybe 14 or so, Chimpanzees, Gorilla, Orang, White Cheeked Gibbons, and some old and new world monkeys. We had never seen bonobos before and this was a treat. The highlight was watching a mom bonobo take care of her newborn, who really wanted to go explore, but she kept him close by to her. The gibbons were super active and had a huge outdoor climbing enclosure, one of the females was so much fun to watch swinging everywhere as she played with her brother.

The coolest part is that Wilhelma Zoo has a 'kindergarten' for primates. Meaning that if any primate infant is abandoned by its mom or something happens that the infant is alone, at any zoo in Europe, they are sent to Wilhelma. The kindergarten is just about the coolest thing ever, and would be the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD. Because these infants are orphaned, their human keeper takes on the role of primate mom. They get to spend the day inside the enclosure teaching the infants how to behave as an ape. In this case there were two little gorillas. They were together and playing with their 'mom'. It was just about the coolest thing I have seen. I wasn't able to understand the process all that much since everything was written in German. But it looked liked as the gorillas got older they would mix in with older gorillas until they were able to integrate into a troop.

The weather was excellent and exploring the zoo was a lot of fun. We saw elephants getting lunch, tigers playing together in the water, a kids zoo/petting zoo area, baby pigs, lots of birds... oh yes and the second best part.... the EISBÄR (polar bear) baby.

The baby eisbär in germany is on the same level as the baby panda in DC. There are signs everywhere, books written about him, stuffed animals, people lining up to see him. And he is very cute, we saw him hanging out with his mom, swimming some. Just for the record his name is Wilbär.

We were exhausted after spending hours walking over the zoo, it was a bigger zoo that DC. It was a full day, and by the time we got back in town only had enough energy to have some pretzels, fries and beer.

Wilhelma Zoo website