Stuttgart was chosen as a place to stop because I had been there and Heather had not. It was that simple!

Arriving at the main station (Hauptbahnhof) it was clear that a massive engineering undertaking was underway - what DB are doing is to build over 35 miles of new railway, including eight new east-west underground platforms that will enable trains to serve the city without reversing in the station. The land that the current platforms sit in will be sold for development after the new station opens.

The project is reported as being over €1bn overspent and about two years late in delivery which is a shame, but what it does also show is a massive amount of ambition to improve rail links across Germany including linking different high speed lines. If you are coming to Stuttgart by train don't expect to use the new platforms until at least 2021.

From the Hauptbahnhof the walk into the city is along Königstrasse a modern wide pedestrianised shopping street. The architecture is modern(ish) and presumably came as a result of WW2 bombing raids in the city which was almost flattened given its key industrial manufacturing status. Some.old buildings do remain in the central area which have been rebuilt, but the majority of the city is of post war construction.

What Stuttgart does have however is a pretty good and integrated transport system - although this is not unusual in Germany - and a €4.50 day ticket was great value giving access to buses, u-bahn, trams, and s-bahn services across the city. We really could learn something from 'Johnny Foreigner' in terms of having a combined and integrated transport system!

During our time in Stuttgart we visited the Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt) which filled the city streets and squares. This was our second market of the trip and it is clear that many items for sale are fairly standard across all Christmas Markets. The choices of food do vary a bit, but of course sausages, glühwein, langos (a large donut type thing with a variety of toppings), flammkuchen, fried mushrooms, pommes frites, smoked fish, burgers and lots of other unhealthy products are available.

We also visited the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) to get views across the city which included a ride on a rack railway to get there as well as a visit to the city graveyard reached by an old funicular railway. The graveyard was an interesting place to walk around and the layout was so different to anything in the UK.

Stuttgart is also the home of Mercedes Benz and Porsche, with both companies having museums in the city. On my previous visit I called in at the Porsche Museum, so this time visited the Mercedes Benz Museum. It took over two hours to do the museum (and could easily have been more) which provides a full history of the famous Three Pointed Star road car manufacturer as well as its involvement in motor racing too with their famous Silver Arrows.

Being a large city there were numerous opportunities for eating and drinking although Germany still allows smoking in many bars too so you have to look out for that.

We decided to eat on our first evening at Sausalitos, a German Mexican chain restaurant. It was half price Monday on many food items and also happy hour on cocktails until 20.00 so made for a great value dinner.Our final evening in Stuttgart saw us having an Italian meal, not too far from our hotel, at a local joint De Caesare. The food was rather filling and great value but was served up rather too quickly to make it a really relaxing evening.

Our next stop on this German break will be Heidelberg, a place neither of us has visited before. It will be nice to see somewhere new, but will also give us the chance to travel out and about into the Black Forest area too.