HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
MAY 2013
95
STUTTGART
||
THREE PERFECT DAYS
DAY ONE
| You wake up feeling regal amid the old-money
environs of the
Hotel amSchlossgarten
.
A er pulling back the
ornate curtains and gazing dreamily at the hotel gardens, you
head down to the breakfast lounge for a helping of liverwurst
and what the locals call “farmer’s bread,” which is nu y and
wholesome. There’s no beer to wash
it down—you’re told that’s the thing
to do on weekends.
Anselm Vogt-Moykopf is a little
late to arrive because he’s been clean-
ing his taxi for you. He’s been driving
cabs for 27 years, but only had the
“
divine realization” to become a tour
guide while drinking wine with
friends one night in the 1990s. “My
God!” he says as the two of you drive
off into the drizzle. “Who knows a city
be er than a taxi driver?”
Ascending into a wealthy hillside
suburb in North Stu gart, you stop
at the pre y Chinese Garden, which
looks out onto roo ops laden with
vegetable plots and, in the distance,
“
Rubble Hill,” where debris from
World War II was once deposited
and which now stands as an odd
and li le-visited memorial. The city,
it seems, has moved on.
Stuttgart could be dubbed Ger-
many’s “City of Cars,” and Anselm
drops you off at its centerpiece: the
Mercedes-Benz Museum
.
A silver
capsule whizzes you to the top of
the eight-story building, the sound
effects switching from motors to
horse carriages to let you know
you’ve arrived—at the birth of the
automobile industry, in 1886. A high-
light of yourmuseumtour is the 1902
Mercedes-Simplex 40 PS, which sits
on a marble-and-rose-quartz throne
adorned with 72 Swarovski crystals.
Even though you’re not the world’s
biggest gearhead, you are captivated.
The fancy automobiles have left
you feeling above your station, so
you take a cab to the
Breuninger Mall
,
where Stuttgart’s smart set go to
swagger and spend. You stay long
enough for a li le of the glamour to
ruboffonyoubefore you take a short
walk to
CaféKönigsbau
,
anhonest eat-
ery on the main strip, Königstrasse.
Here, you become acquainted with
he y German portions in the form of homemade spaetzle
with lentils and the obligatory sausage and mustard.
Das ist
really very good, you assure the matronly waitress.
From here, it’s a quick stroll to Dorotheenstrasse and the
sprawling
Markthalle
(
Market Hall). You browse the Merz
STEP OUT OF STUTTGART’S
main rail sta-
tion, and immediately it hits you: the hoppy
smell of Dinkelacker, one of the local brews.
There’s a protected vineyard up in the hills
behind you, and straight
ahead, a cosmopolitan
stretch of consumerism.
The core of Germany’s
car industry—Mercedes-
Benz, Porsche, Maybach
and Daimler all have roots
here—Stu gart is hardly
a monochrome industrial
center. It’s the birthplace
of the German hip-hop
scene, and home to the
most multicultural com-
munity in the country. Its
streets heave with hipsters
and are lined with health
food stores, underground
jazz joints and candlelit
rock clubs.
As for the look of the
place, Stu gart is not the
most conventionally beau-
tiful city in Germany (many
of its historic buildings
were destroyed inWorld
War II), but its architecture
is stunning in its variety,
ranging from baroque to
Bauhaus, along with the
kind of brutalism you’d
expect. The cranes twirling
across the skyline suggest
there is more to come.
The further you explore
Stu gart, the more you
find to recommend it,
and the same goes for the
people who call it home.
These no-nonsense folk,
it is said, are born with “a
noodle in their mouth and
a broom in their hand.”
And while that idiom
might be hard to decipher, what’s beyond
doubt is that Stu gart’s residents are
inordinately welcoming, inventive and fun.
And, like their city, they’re full of surprises.
POPULATION
613,392
PER-CAPITA GDP
$47,200
PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION
EMPLOYED IN
AUTOMOTIVE-RELATED FIELDS
≈50
RANK AMONG EUROPEAN
REGIONS IN PER-CAPITA
R&D SPENDING
3
PERCENTAGE OF VISITORS
ON BUSINESS
≈70
NUMBER OF REGISTERED
NATIONALITIES
173
AREA, IN SQUARE MILES
80
PERCENTAGE OF LAND
DEVOTED TO GREEN SPACE
60
+
SIZE OF MUNICIPALLY OWNED
VINEYARDS, IN ACRES
43
STUTTGART BY THE NUMBERS
