A diary of Stuttgart

We arrived in Stuttgart on Friday at around 2pm. We the checked into our hotel and went to dinner with a guest speaker, Thorsten Donn, the Head City Planner of Stuttgart. After dinner, Thorsten took us to the castle plaza, where he explained how Stuttgart is a fairly safe city, but struggle with gang violence. On Saturday, we woke up early and went to the Mercedes Benz museum. I enjoyed the walk from the train station to the Mercedes Benz museum as I saw the VfB Stuttgart stadium and practice pitches on the way. We then headed to the Stuttgart 21 where we toured the plan for the project and the underground rail way where they were constructing the project. On Sunday, we went to the Porsche museum where there was a guide who took us around the museum. He explained the historical implications of each vehicle and how impactful they were for the development of automobiles. After the Porsche museum, we took a train to Tübingen where there was a tour guide who took us around the town. At first we explored the French part of Tübingen where it was once occupied by the French army. The guide then took us to the university town of Tübingen where we explored the castle and looked at its history. After exploring Tübingen with the guide, he dropped us off at Ludwig, which was the restaurant we ate dinner at.

During my trip in Stuttgart, I enjoyed the Mercedes Benz museum the most as the style of the museum was very creative. I enjoyed how the museum was structured as a timeline going from the start of Mercedes Benz being at the top going to where they are now at the bottom. The image above shows how one of the floors looks like. I felt like that was the perfect structure for a Mercedes Benz museum as their history with automobiles go way back. During the trip to the college town in Tübingen, I found the history of the town to be very surprising. For example, the tour guide mentioned how there was a jail for students who were too loud at night. I learned most from the Stuttgart 21 tour as it was a great experience going to the underground railway of where they were constructing. It was interesting to see this innovative way of fixing train delays. This was an issue Stuttgart has been struggling with for a long time, as there is a bottle neck: only 5 tracks for all the trains going in and out of Stuttgart.