Baden-Württemberg’s auto pioneers
Mechanical engineer Gottlieb Daimler left formal employment in 1880, and started tinkering in his Bad Cannstatt workshop in 1882. His quest to produce a light, fast, internal combustion engine was done so secretively that police raided his workshop for money-counterfeiting on the tip-off of a gardener. In 1883, his single-cylinder four-stroke shattered the repose of Kurhaus spa-goers and by 1885 his patented 264cc “Grandfather Clock” powered a motorbike. A year later the world’s first motorboat, the Neckar, chugged upriver and his motorized carriage terrorized horses. Daimler moved to a factory on Seelberg in July 1887.
Meanwhile, unaware of the goings-on in Daimler’s shed, Karl Benz in Mannheim was blazing his own motor trail to found Benz & Cie in 1883, the same year as Daimler. The world’s two oldest motor manufacturers eventually united in June 1926 as Daimler-Benz long after Daimler had died and Benz retired. The Mercedes name was introduced in 1902 to honour the daughter of early Austrian dealer Emil Jellinek.
Mercedes-Benz-Museum
Housed in a futuristic landmark building on the banks of the Neckar, 4km northeast of the city centre, the Mercedes-Benz-Museum is chock-full of 110 years of immaculate motors. It starts with Daimler’s pioneering motorbike – a wooden bone-shaker with a horse’s saddle – and beside it is the one-cylinder motor-tricycle Motorwagen and motorized carriage Motorkutsche; Benz and Daimler created them independently in 1886, both capable of a not-so-giddy 16kmph. Benz just pipped Daimler to produce the world’s first car.
Another trail-blazer is the robust Benz Vélo, the world’s first production car, for which twelve hundred of the moneyed elite parted with 20,000 gold Marks. A racy 500K Special Roadster in preening pillarbox red begs for a Hollywood Thirties starlet, but it’s the racers that truly quicken the pulse, no more so than the legendary Silver Arrows of the 1920s and 1930s; a cinema shows the sleek machines in action. Just as eye-catching are a pair of experimental record-breakers that look far more futuristic than their dates suggest: in the W125, Rudolf Caracciola clocked up 432.7km per hour on the Frankfurt–Darmstadt Autobahn in 1938 (no one’s been faster on a public highway since); and six-wheeler sci-fi vision T80 was powered by an aeroplane engine to 650km per hour in 1939, though World War II killed the project.
Stuttgart festivals
Stuttgart really livens up in April, during the three-week Stuttgarter Frühlingsfest which salutes spring with beer and grilled sausages; in August, when the open-air Sommerfest takes over the Schlossplatz with live music; and during the Stuttgarter Weindorf later in the same month. Stuttgart also hosts Germany’s largest Christmas Market in December, but the town’s really big event is the late September, sixteen-day Cannstatter Volksfest, a sizeable local equivalent to Munich’s Oktoberfest, that’s as yet undiscovered by invading armies of tourists.
Stuttgart Weinstuben
Cradled in a valley of five hundred vineyards – some of which spill right into the city – Stuttgart naturally enjoys its wine. Local vintners produce a number of whites, including an elegant Riesling, as well as the popular, full-bodied red Trollinger. Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of Stuttgart’s wines though: wine consumption here is twice the national average so local supplies only just meet the demand and few wines leave the valley. So, while Frankfurt has its cider taverns and Munich its beer halls, Stuttgart’s unique drinking dens are its Weinstuben or wine bars – a few of which are listed here. These tend to open evenings only, rarely on a Sunday, and are usually unpretentious rustic places. All serve solid and inexpensive Swabian dishes, which invariably include doughy Spätzle (noodles) and Maultaschen, the local oversized ravioli. More homey still are Besenwirtschaften, temporary wine-bars that appear in the front rooms of people’s houses to serve the season’s vintage with home-cooking, including potato soup (Kartoffelsuppe), noodle and beef stew (Gaisburger Marsch), or a Schlachtplatte, a meat feast served with vegetables. These places traditionally announce themselves with a broom hung outside and their locations vary from year to year. They’re all listed in the guide Stuttgarter Weine from the tourist office, which is also a good place to pick up information on the Stuttgarter Weinwanderweg (stuttgarter-weinwanderweg.de), the hiking routes that circle through local vineyards and past many Besenwirtschaften.
Stuttgart’s other great wine-initiative is the Stuttgarter Weindorf, when during the last weekend in August the Marktplatz and Schillerplatz fill with wine buffs sampling hundreds of regional tipples. The year’s vintages are on sale, and it’s a great chance to pick up rarer wines. A similar event is the Fellbacher Herbst on the second weekend in October, in Fellback, just east of Bad Cannstatt.