Ski Break Part 2: Germany

After our weekend in Vienna we drove up to Micha's home in Ludwigsburg, a town just north of Southwestern Germany's main city, Stuttgart. Micha had to get up early on Monday morning and fly up to Hanover for a series of business meetings but she generously left us the use of her apartment and her car during her absence. The first day we headed into downtown Stuttgart to explore the town. We procured a tourist map and flipped through it to find some things to do. It being Monday, most of the Stuttgart's numerous museums were closed. Then I saw that Der Hegel Haus, the place where one of the world's most important philosophical thinkers grew up, was open and free. For a nerd and philosophy major like me, this was thrilling.

Inside the Hegel house. It was good practice for both Taylor and I. Everything was in German so he got a lot of practice translating, and I had to strain to remember what I learned about him while studying philosophy in college.

"I wonder how many times Hegel tripped here..."

After spending a while working to understand the dialectic evolution of Spirit in the Hegel museum we decided to give our brains a rest with a stroll around Stuttgart. It was a beautiful, if slightly brisk, day so we had a nice walk. Then we stumbled upon something that we'd both been cruelly deprived of for 6 months while living in rural Hungary: Thai food! I had panang curry and it made me happy in ways words cannot capture.

The Collegiate Church is Stuttgart's most important Protestant church. A church of some sort has stood on this land since 1175AD.

Castle Square is the heart of downtown Stuttgart. Construction of the palace began in 1746 and the royals of Wuerttemberg moved between here and the below pictured Ludwigsburg palace multiple times. Palace choosing seems to have been a constant source of stress for the royals of Europe. Poor dears.

Speaking of the rich and powerful, after our walk around Stuttgart we made our way to the Porche complex to see the museum. It was little more than a room full of ridiculously nice cars, but that was cool to see. Stuttgart is perhaps best known today as the home to a lot of really cool cars - both Mercedes and Porche are headquartered here. Unfortunately the Benz museum was closed during our day in Stuttgart. Next time.

The world's first Volkswagon - or people's car - is in the Porche museum because Ferdinand Porche designed this vehicle in 1931. This is a particularly interesting factoid as Porche moves to become the majority shareholder in the VW corporation in the coming weeks.

After a full day in Stuttgart we made our way back to Micha's apartment in Ludwigsburg. We walked around the town's center for a while and then picked up dinner supplies from a grocery store. Back at Micha's we made a dish impossible to make with the ingredients available in Hungary: fettucine alfredo with sundried tomatoes. Parmesan cheese, high-quality olive oil, and sundried tomatoes all being unavailable in Szentes, the dinner was quite a treat. We spend the rest of the evening in trying to figure out what to plan the rest of our week on vacation.

The next morning we were up early to visit Strasbourg. Taylor had heard it was really beautiful and I knew it to be roughly the home of my ancestors (though I wouldn't learn until returning back to Ludwigsburg to read an email from my mom that I could have found records of my ancestors in the city library) so I was up for it. Strasbourg is in the Alsace region that straddles the border between France and Germany. The territory and the city have been banded about between the two powers throughout it's history, though since the end of the Second World War it has been French territory. It is one of the most impressive cities I've ever visited, both in history and beauty. Historically it has been an important place since Roman times and today is a world capital as the home of the European Council and the European Commission for Human Rights. Aesthetically, I think the pictures speak for themselves:

Our first view of central Strasbourg as we crossed the bridge over the Rive Ill, a tributary of the nearby Rhine that forms the modern border between France and Germany. Downtown medieval Strasbourg is situated on an island in the middle of the Ill. We divided our day between sitting in cafes sampling French specialties and strolling around enjoying the scenery. Below are pictures from our walk around the entire island along the Ill:

A tour boat continues via canal.

Me with the medieval Ponts bridge behind and the cathedral in the distance. This picture was taken from atop a huge barrier bridge that spans the Ill in front of where the island of downtown Strasbourg begins. In medieval times to defend the city the barrier's gates would close to flood the area in front of the city, acting as a defense against invasion.

Strasbourg's location on the border has sometimes meant great tragedy during wars. This statue commemorates those who died in the First World War. A mother is depicted mourning for two dead sons: one who died fighting for France and one who died fighting for Germany.

Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, made Strasbourg his home for much of his adult life. Unfortunately some sort of carnival market seems to have ruined the solemnity of my shot, but you get the idea.

The Strasbourg Cathedral is one of the most important High Gothic structures in the world. Construction upon it began in the mid 12th century and it's northern tower was the tallest building in the world for over 200 years.

First view of the interior upon entering the cathedral.

Looking up the Nave to the huge Rose window. The stained glass in the cathedral was removed by the Germans during the Second World War and then sent for safe keeping to a mine in a small town near Micha's home. After the war the US military discovered the treasures and sent them back to Strasbourg.

Speaking of the US military, the cathedral has a dedication to the American soldiers who fought to free France from the Nazi occupation.

One of the world's largest astronomical clocks, just in case you were wondering not only the time but also Jupiter's location.

After a full day of walking around the downtime historical section of the city we decided to get out of the center to see the new European government complex.

The main building for the European Council, headquartered in Strasbourg. This is just one of many huge shiny glass buildings in the European complex in Strasbourg. When asked why the European bureaucrats need so many huge shiny glass buildings, Micha unenthusiastically replied "for meetings."

That night we arrived home just in time to meet Micha and create a big dinner consisting mostly of resurrected leftovers from the previous night. The three of us sat around for the rest of the evening discussing our trips and then catching up. The next day Micha had to make it through one more busy day of meetings and such while Taylor and I set out to explore some more of the local scenery. We made our way first to Schwäbisch Hall, one of the oldest cities in the region, founded on this location in the 5th century BC by the Celts. It was once one of the regions most important centers because of its designation as capital of Schwäbia. The town's long history has seen devastation during the Thirty Years War and blights of the bubonic plague, but now it's a charming city full of beautiful German medieval buildings and lively street scenes.

St Michael's Church standing over the city's main square.

The town hall was built in Baroque style after the destruction of the medieval style buildings in one of the huge fires that swept through the city in the 18th Century.

Views of the city from the river at the bottom of the valley it's built around:

After spending a lot of the day strolling around Schwäbisch Hall we bought a picnic lunch in a supermarket and hit the road to visit a few other small cities in the region and find a nice view to enjoy during lunch.

Our golden chariot and a really big bridge

After a nice drive through the countryside we made it to Langenburg, another small town with a nice castle. It seemed like a pretty touristy place and it being February still it was mostly a ghost town. We ate lunch on the patio of a closed cafe on the side of the castle and enjoyed a nice view of the valley below.

Langenburg's castle, unfortunately closed for the off-season when we visited.

After a day of driving around and seeing the little towns we retired back to Micha's to wait for her to be done with work. After she escaped from her 11 hour board meeting we geared up for a nice dinner in Stuttgart with Gert, a friend of Micha's who I also knew as he studied at William and Mary. We went to a local restaurant and had a big dinner of Maultaschen, a local specialty that is like mushroom ravioli. After that we hit a few bars and just relaxed and talked for a few hours before heading back home where Micha had been promised a day of sleeping in until whenever the hell she wanted. After our sleeping in we got up for a day seeing Ludwigsburg itself with our qualified native tour guide. Ludwigsburg is home to one of Germany's biggest Baroque Palaces. Indeed the city was pretty much built to support the monarchs who built the palace and ruled the surrounding Wuerttemberg from there. When we arrived we discovered that we had a few hours before an English tour began so we went outside to see the gardens. Outside of the palace is a really cool fairytale garden which Micha had shown me a few years ago when I'd visited and I thought it would be great to see again and relearn all of the Grimm's fairy tales. Unfortunately it was closed for the summer, so Rapunzel's tower was all we could see:

Rapunzel's tower

The park was closed *sad music*

Instead of reliving our childhood fairytales we walked around the mostly muddy gardens for a while before going to a really good pizza place Micha new. By the time we finished lunch it was getting close to tour time so we made it back to the Palace.

The courtyard of Ludwigsburg Palace

Construction on the palace started with Ludwig (hence the name) but Frederick I elevated it to the huge structure that remains today. He was a husky fellow and stood over 2 meters tall. He gained much power and territory by allying himself with Napoleon. Just imagine little Napoleon meeting with this giant of a man.

Our tour guide was a (perhaps over)enthusiastic British woman who liked telling funny stories about the palace's history and inhabitants. My favorite story involved some Duke who was a notorious philanderer and eventually had to resort to crude tactics to see which ladies he had already been with in the royal court. Those who he had "known" were to come to balls wearing blue shoes, while the unexplored were to wear pink.

While our rotund King and womanizing Duke were living the high life, an enormous army of servants were there to attend to their every need. The palace is designed so that the outer rooms (with the nice big windows) are for the palace's regal inhabitants, while the core of the palace consists of dwelling space and passage ways for the numerous servants. Here is a dim servant gathering room behind the King's quarters.

The palace's ball room

The Ancestor's Hall, where one finds a plethora of ugly rich people on the walls of a very pretty passage way.

After finishing our tour of the drafty palace (marble is not good insulation) we warmed up in a nearby cafe and planned our next step. We wanted to go to the Mercedes museum but we didn't have much time before it closed, so instead Micha suggested visiting another well-preserved town nearby. We hopped in the car and soon made it to Besigheim.

Micha and I in Besigheim's little main square

As we walked around the town Micha's eyes narrowed and she began exuding signs of immense anger. She had spotted her enemy. Micha, you see, has a Big Important Job with the in the upper echelons of the gardening supply company that her father started. They produce mostly potting soil and sell it to stores, and she just had been in countless hours of tedious board meetings trying to figure out what to do about one popular German store chain that was fighting dirty and trying to seriously undercut them. And here, right in front of us, was one of their chains. We decided to stride in and check out how much they were really selling her products for:

Always cool under pressure, Micha smiles for the camera and poses with one her company's products in the location of a very difficult distributor. "They will pay for their insolence" she warned when the cameras were off.

Indeed Micha's Big Important Job was really going into overdrive the week that Taylor and I visited her. She's been working with her father's company for some time now - officially for over a year and she grew up in the business. As her father steps out of the spotlight she is taking the helm. The press loves the story: pretty 23 year old assumes dominant position in the board room. That week 3 large German national papers covered her story, one calling her "Die Torf-Prinzessen" - "The peat moss princess." Hilarious (sorry Micha). Then she was one the cover of a financial magazine. Then, perhaps most insanely, on Deutsche Welle, the German CNN. (click here it's the first segment of the show).

The Micha Media Maelstrom

Insane.

But even with all of the glamor of being one of the Goddesses of the fertilizing world, she still has her feet on the ground. She's the kind of person to have a nice laid back dinner with and discuss anything and everything, which is precisely what we did. Micha was happy to have won 4 days off from work and life in the fast lane, so after our day around Ludwigsburg we relaxed over dinner and prepared for the next day's journey to Holland.

Dinner at Micha's after a long day of sightseeing and before a long drive up to Holland.