9/12/10

Let me say now that even though we spent a week in Stuttgart, we only saw a small fraction of the city.  Dave was attending the Congress and while I did a little sightseeing without him, I mostly just rested and enjoyed being away from work and all the lists of things to do waiting at home...I'm also only sharing a few of the hundreds and hundreds of pictures we took...

Sunday, we met up with some friends and spent the day walking through the gardens, enjoying the sites, watching the people, and truly enjoying the fine 70degree weather.  We went with part of the group to the Landesmuseum (the Old Palace, church, and cultural Museum) - the buildings were started in 1325 - the museum contains items ranging from burial pieces from 6th century BC to modern-day stained glass and 19th century crown jewels.  Then we all joined up at a nearby restuarant and had a great meal.  What more can you ask of a day?

nothing is sacred to a pigeon

 



Queen Olga - d.1892





one of my favorite pictures of the entire trip...
a minute before she was standing at the very edge...
testing her limits and seeing how long it would
take her mother to tell her to step back from the water...

09/11/10

We had breakfast and decided to walk through the Schlossgarten to see what there was to see...the park is made up of three gardens that run from the River Neckar to the Old Palace...and is much enjoyed by the locals - it was packed with people - most left over from the large demonstration from the day before (more about that later).  The gardens are technically 600 years old - from their beginning as a garden in one of the moats of the Palace - of course, the entire area was bombed during WWII and the Palace has had to be reconstructed...

 There were a lot of fountains, musicians, families, children being children




"Water Games"





a lot of the doorways and windows are covered in wire screens;

this is to theoretically keep the birds from roosting there...





Lots of statues, both on the ground and on top of buildings...



the graffiti says "Away with Schuster" (the current Mayor
of Stuttgart) and the S21 with the x through it
stands for "No Stuttgart 21" - more on that later...

the Opera House

 

The Palace (the New Schloss) has been completely rebuilt since it was destroyed in WWII...

and on the square directly in front of it (the Schlossplatz) there are more musicians, performance artists, artists, museums, art, and thousands of tourists...

and the walk back to the hotel brought some interesting sites, as well...