Stuttgart is the capital of Baden-Württemberg. Hence, one can imagine, it is a big city. And a city not to be missed. Its name derived from “Stutengarten” – a stud farm. But “surprisenly” we haven’t noticed any of the horses when we went there for a day…the city was a capital already from 15th century.
Stuttgart greeted us with typical…British rain…and it almost spoiled the first impression (which we all know is the strongest). My magic guide-book told us to expect a great collection of art in Stuttgart Staatsgallerie. What the book failed to tell was that the gallery is currently…closed for reconstruction works until…the summer of 2007! So what the rain didn’t finish, the gallery fiasco almost completed…Mind you, there were two temporary exhibitions in there, which we attended anyway, since we were in the right place, at the right time. The Monet and someone of the modern times, whom I didn’t even bother to remember, since I didn’t particular get the artistic depth of his builder’s working drawings…there were also two rooms of the original museum left opened to the public and I even discovered few works of Picasso and Modigliani…still...better then nothing, I suppose…we’ve already decided that we do not like Stuttgart, when we left the gallery… but by that time the rain has stopped, the sun peeped out from behind the clouds and we found ourselves on the huge central square of Stuttgart – Schlossplatz.
Well this city certainly has got something to show. Facing the square there is a magnificent palace – “New Palace”. Built in baroque style and reflects a lot of French influence. (it did help to create this impression, that fact that there was a street musician playing a street-organ. Very “french” to me)…The Palace now houses all sorts of government departments as well as political party’s headquarters. It does look impressive, But what was odd about the whole Schlossplatz that everything around it looked like being taking out of the context of different times. There are the modern department stores and office buildings on the one side, the palace on the other side and some buildings from the 60s around. It all has no common style
Slightly further away there was an “Old Palace”, that we also visited. The building is also not in “German” style at all, but a Spanish villa comes to mind… dates back to the 10th century. It has a beautiful 16th century Renaissance courtyard and hosts a historical museum, which was interesting enough to spend in it a couple of hours…
What we also did in Stuttgart was…shopping. It was our only shopping adventure of the whole German trip. I’m not much of a shopper anyway, especially, in the places I’ve never been before, I just think to shop there would be an unforgivable loss of time. But we did so in Stuttgart – just strolled along the main shopping street and I can’t even tell how long it is – we never reached the end of the shopping line. It was kind of fun, as all we did was window shopping, and of course, it was not what I’ll remember the most about Stuttgart anyway...
Stuttgart greeted us with typical…British rain…and it almost spoiled the first impression (which we all know is the strongest). My magic guide-book told us to expect a great collection of art in Stuttgart Staatsgallerie. What the book failed to tell was that the gallery is currently…closed for reconstruction works until…the summer of 2007! So what the rain didn’t finish, the gallery fiasco almost completed…Mind you, there were two temporary exhibitions in there, which we attended anyway, since we were in the right place, at the right time. The Monet and someone of the modern times, whom I didn’t even bother to remember, since I didn’t particular get the artistic depth of his builder’s working drawings…there were also two rooms of the original museum left opened to the public and I even discovered few works of Picasso and Modigliani…still...better then nothing, I suppose…we’ve already decided that we do not like Stuttgart, when we left the gallery… but by that time the rain has stopped, the sun peeped out from behind the clouds and we found ourselves on the huge central square of Stuttgart – Schlossplatz.
Well this city certainly has got something to show. Facing the square there is a magnificent palace – “New Palace”. Built in baroque style and reflects a lot of French influence. (it did help to create this impression, that fact that there was a street musician playing a street-organ. Very “french” to me)…The Palace now houses all sorts of government departments as well as political party’s headquarters. It does look impressive, But what was odd about the whole Schlossplatz that everything around it looked like being taking out of the context of different times. There are the modern department stores and office buildings on the one side, the palace on the other side and some buildings from the 60s around. It all has no common style
Slightly further away there was an “Old Palace”, that we also visited. The building is also not in “German” style at all, but a Spanish villa comes to mind… dates back to the 10th century. It has a beautiful 16th century Renaissance courtyard and hosts a historical museum, which was interesting enough to spend in it a couple of hours…
What we also did in Stuttgart was…shopping. It was our only shopping adventure of the whole German trip. I’m not much of a shopper anyway, especially, in the places I’ve never been before, I just think to shop there would be an unforgivable loss of time. But we did so in Stuttgart – just strolled along the main shopping street and I can’t even tell how long it is – we never reached the end of the shopping line. It was kind of fun, as all we did was window shopping, and of course, it was not what I’ll remember the most about Stuttgart anyway...