Stuttgart actually turned out to be a bit of a surprise. I had really only come here for one reason, and that was to visit Hohenzollern castle as a day trip. As far as I knew Stuttgart itself was just a large not really touristy city. But other than the castle it did have a little bit to do. There was a palace there and its main attractions, the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz museums.

But first was the day trip to the castle. The photos I had seen of this thing made it look absolutely awesome. And I guess it was, but unfortunately, there wasn't really anywhere you could get to to actually get a view like in the photos. I guess most of them were taken from the air. It was still a nice castle to walk around in, and it even had a beer garden on the inside. I had a couple of hours to explore myself before the guided tour started which took you through the inside. But the castle wasn't really all that large once you were in there, and it took far less than 2 hours to wander around. So I did the only logical thing at this point, I hit the beer garden. A couple of beers later and it was time for the guided tour.

The guided tour was rather interesting, in some case for reasons other than the actual tour. I learned that the castle is still actually privately owned by the original family, and they still use it from time to time for meetings and such. This is also the 3rd castle to stand on this spot, built around 150 years ago on top of the second which was built on top of the first after they were destroyed. That's the problem with castles, people were always trying to destroy them and a lot of the time they succeeded so not many really old ones are left standing.

For most of the tour we had to put these giant slippers on over our shoes to protect the floor. Which basically turned the rest of the tour into skating and sliding. We learned a bit about the family history and then took a trip down into the treasury where the crown was and other such things. After this I had another hour or so to kill before the bus back to the train station so you guessed it, back to the beer garden. This time with a couple of American girls I made friends with on the tour.

That night in the hostel I watched Australia vs the Netherlands with a bunch of other Aussies. Unfortunately we lost. After that match was the Spain vs Chile match which we had worked out we required Spain to beat Chill about 2-0 and then for us to beat Spain for us to be able to go through. Spain being as useless as they are this cup however lost 0-2 and we were out of the cup, along with Spain. During this time however we invented a new sport which we called Taserball. Basically it's soccer, but when someone takes a dive they get tasered for every second they stay down unless it turns out they're actually injured.

The next day is where the bit of a surprise came from that I mentioned at the top. This was the Mercedes-Benz museum. I figured instead of taking an afternoon bus to Freiberg and then doing nothing for the rest of the day which I've often done, I'd actually spend the day doing something and take an evening bus. This was a good choice because the museum was actually a real highlight. It focused on the history of the company, and as such, the history of the automobile itself, since it was Karl Benz who invented it (along with, though independently of, Gottlieb Daimler).

The first part of the museum was mainly focused on the invention of the combustion engine and then the first cars/motorised carriages and the founding of the two companies; Benz & Cie and DMG (Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft). It was actually DMG which came up with the Mercedes brand name which was named after the daughter of a French guy who bought and sold DMG cars. The Mercedes brand was used for a series of cars used mostly for racing.

The two companies merged in 1926 during the German depression for survival becoming Daimler-Benz. Now days Daimler AG is the name of the parent company and the name Mercedes-Benz is used for the automotive division of that company. It was a very informative and interesting museum. Being not much of a car person at all, I didn't really care much about the cars, but the history of cars and the industry was really fascinating, and seeing some of those old cars was really cool.

The museum got a bit boring in the middle part when focused on more modern vehicles, and trucks and busses and stuff. But it got interesting again when talking about the future and electric motors (both battery run and fuel cells). Hopefully one day the infrastructure exists for the hydrogen fuel cell cars, because they really are something awesome. The museum also had the original Popemobile which is cool. Didn't realise the Pope got around in a Merc. Then they had a small section dedicated to racing and a bit on concept cars, but that stuff didn't really interest me all that much either. Definitely a worthwhile museum even for someone not really interested in cars.

Then the only thing left was a two and half hour bus trip to Freiburg on the edge of the Black Forest. This actually worked out much better than my usual plans. I was able to take one of my pills which tend to kinda knock me out and then just crash as soon as I got to my hostel.