European Vacation Part 3

I was heading back to Weinheim to drop off my garment bag with nice clothes from the conference, but I wanted to see some more of Germany, so I stopped in Düsseldorf for one night. Düsseldorf sits right on the Rhein river which is a main artery for cargo barges and goes the length of Germany. It also kinda has a reputation of being very fashionable and possibly a bit snooty. I really liked the town though and stayed at a very nice hostel in the super rich part of town (saw an Audi R8 parallel parked in front of some houses). Düsseldorf was filled with museums and I visited the K20 art musuem (all 20th century art) and then the Kunst Palast (art palace), which had a little bit of everything and took me 6 hours to cover. The Kunst Palast had a great collection of glass, from ancient Persian and Egyptian to modern Murano and everything in between.









I made a quick stop in Weinheim for one night and then it was on to Stuttgart to meet up with Eric and Kevin. In summer 2007 I did an internship at a company called TRUMPF which is located about 20 minutes outside of Stuttgart, so I know the city pretty well and it felt like a bit of a homecoming for me. We found a great hostel just outside the city center and prepared to live it up in Stuggi. The first night we all got there, we meet up with my friend Christine and a bunch of her friends and went out of the town.


This is the ICE (InterCity Express), Germany's answer to France's TGV. Not as fast in a straight line, but this baby can corner much faster than the TGV thanks to a cabin that pivots with respect to the chassis.





The next day, I gave Eric and Kevin the abbreviated city center tour of Stuttgart and then we headed to the brand spankin' new Mercedes museum just on the other side of the Neckar river. In case you didn't know, the Stuttgart area is the seat of Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Bosch, and a million other famous German engineering companies. The Mercedes museum did not disappoint. On the S-Bahn ride over to it we met a Korean architecture student who was headed there too. I don't think she cared at all about the cars, but was just there for the architecture of the building.















I could have spent all day in the Mercedes museum, but we had an appointment to keep. So the three of us jumped on another S-Bahn out to Ditzingen, where I used to work to meet up with my buddy Jochen (no, not everyone in Germany is named Jochen), his new wife Simone, and other cooworker, Oliver and his wife. Naturally, we chose the local brewery, Wichtel, to meet. I had never meet Simone before and it was great to hang out with them, albeit for a short while.







Then it was back into Stuttgart to get a good night's rest before the journey into Austria and the Alps!



Eric and I were planning on doing some hiking and climbing in the Alps, so we headed to Salzburg next. Salzburg is right on the German/Austrian border and the northern end of the Alps. It is also very close to Berchtesgaden, famous for magnificent lakes and mountains, and spiritual home of the Nazis. It's where the SS built the Eagle's Nest sanctuary on top of a mountain, which was given to Hitler as a present. Salzburg is also Mozart's birthplace and contains another fortress on a hill right outside the city...anyone noticing a pattern.