Day twelve – Stuttgart to Wurzburg
| Distance today – 166 km | Journey time – 2h 30m |
| Total trip distance – 3,146 km | Total journey time – 2d 02h 35m |
A short hop from Stuttgart of only 2 hours to the next hotel meant we had some time to investigate what Stuttgart could offer before lunch. Jo checked out the options on Trip Advisor and found the second best attraction was the Porsche Museum. The first best attraction was the Mercedes-Benz museum – and she suggested we go whilst in town. We also had 25% off the ticket price having paid for the Porsche Museum.
Breakfast first. The hotel was in some way themed Brazilian, but most of breakfast was the usual buffet stuff – apart from a small corner where they had some Brazilian dishes. Chicken filled dumplings, cheesy bread and something beef, plus three “jams” – acai berry, papaya and dolce de leche (not jam but almost). It was all extremely nice and made for a good change to the usual selection.
The Mercedes-Benz museum was 20 minutes or so away through heavy traffic – probably the first we’d experienced since crossing the Channel. The museum itself is vast and very, very impressive architecturally. Like the Porsche museum the cars and exhibits are arranged around a corkscrew of floors – so you start at the top (or bottom) and work down (or up). This one started by a ride in a lift which shuttled you to the very top, playing audio of modern through to older cars, then horses when you reached the start of the museum. The first display was a horse (it looked quite bored), then the first cars, boats, planes and so on.
As you worked down the floors there was a historical timeline with images and artefacts which told the story of the company from its roots to the present day, plus other historical reference points, all interspersed with cars. It was really fascinating and very well put together.
Whilst most cars weren’t to my taste, there were a handful of exceptions – the gullwing 300SL being my favourite of the non-racing cars.
Towards the lower part of the corkscrew the exhibits changed to the racing displays, and the huge timeline of all kinds of classes of car from across the eras was visible. Pretty impressive to see how long Mercedes-Benz have been at this. There was one car which knocked all others out the park – Lewis Hamilton’s car which he drove to secure his 7th World Championship win. WOW.
With the museum finished we headed across to what felt like a dealership, but with a lot more cars. I’m not much of a fan of their road cars, and sadly there was no AMG One on display, but there were some nice AMG cars at the top of the building which most people didn’t seem to find, but we did.
After visiting 3 car museums, Jo rated them as follows – the French National museum got a 4, Porsche a 6 and Mercedes-Benz an 8. The Porsche factory tour got a 9 out of 10. Not as bad as I feared!
Time for our drive to Wurzburg. It’s meant to be a very pretty city in Bavaria, but on arrival we saw only the heavy industry we’ve seen across most of our time in Germany. And lots of traffic. It took a while to get across the city and up through narrow roads to our hilltop castle hotel, Schlosshotel Steinburg, but once there the industry and busy roads were behind us and we were perched above and around huge vineyards. The view over the city was expansive.
The hotel itself was a castle with a few added wings, some modern, some less so, but contained numerous small, secluded staircases, wooden panelling, lots of interesting doors, and suits of armour. A very interesting place. Our room was at the front of the hotel with a big balcony and view overlooking the city – I believe it was their best room (not sure how I booked that!)
Once unpacked we headed out for a walk, down the hill, through vineyards and eventually onto busy streets. The older part of the city was our target, but none of it felt like the pretty city advertised. Of course, once in the market we sampled Currywurst mit Pomme Frites, and a cherry ice cream, all of which cost us less than €10 – absolute bargain!
We didn’t like the idea of the walk back up the hill, so elected to call an Uber. Turns out the Uber didn’t know where the hotel was nor felt happy to follow his sat-nav (which was correct in its directions), but we didn’t let him dump us at the bottom and eventually we got to the hotel. He wasn’t being awkward, just unsure where he had to go!
Then dinner. We chose to eat in the hotel because a) the walk back down the hill wasn’t wanted, and b) their restaurant has a good reputation. And it’s a proper fancy restaurant. People were generally dressed up (something we’ve not really seen anywhere this holiday) and the waiting staff were obviously well trained in how to treat guests – from the waiter pulling Jo’s chair out for her, to allowing you to taste various wines before committing. The menu was simple – 3, 4, 5 or 6 courses, from a selection of around a dozen dishes. You could eat them in any order, and have anything – 3 desserts if you chose.
We opted for 3 courses (still not that hungry and eating out 100% of the time means little space for excessive quantities) and a different glass of wine each, but both from local grapes grown in the vineyards we could see from our bedroom balcony. Mine was a bit like a Sauvignon Blanc, Jo’s much sweeter like a sherry. The food began with a “welcome from the kitchen”….then another “welcome from the kitchen”, then our choices, followed by a “thankyou from the kitchen”. In between there was bread with amongst other hand made spreads some lard – which was fantastic.
Overall, by far the best meal we’d had this holiday – exquisite food, even if it cost an eye-watering amount.
