Europe 2019, Cont.: Stuttgart and Bayreuth

Stuttgart, June 14-15

From Rambouillet we drove to Germany, stopping at Verdun to visit the massive concrete citadel that anchored the French defenses during the horrific battle there in 1916.  Our trusty Mercedes, which had proven its worth on the French autoroutes, was about to be tested on the speed limit-less German Autobahnen.  The car’s one peculiarity was its Siri-like voice recognition system, which was activated any time we said “Mercedes,” even in reference to a passing car.  Thus, we learned to refer to the other vehicle as a M-E-R-C-E-D-E-S.

Our trusty Mercedes

Arriving in central Stuttgart, we checked into a hotel on Marienplatz, a square frequented by young people on that Friday evening.  The next day our good friend Irene Kohlhaas, our next door neighbor in Chisinau and Todd’s colleague as German ambassador, led us on a tour of the city, where she had grown up.

Marienplatz Friday evening

We started with a walk through a forest to the Fernsehturm, reportedly the world’s first TV viewing tower, for a view of hilly Stuttgart and its surroundings.  Then on to the city center for a good lunch.

Stuttgart from the Fernsehturm

Downtown Stuttgart

In the afternoon we visited the Mercedes Museum, an impressively large and well organized building on the outskirts of the city.  Starting at the top floor and walking down a circular path, we viewed the evolution of the Daimler-Benz company and the vehicles it produced, all in the context of the political and social developments of the day.  The descriptions were quite forthright in describing the company’s use of POWs and other forced laborers during World War II.  Needless to say, however, the vehicles on display were magnificent

One generation of Mercedes vehicles

Georgia's new car

Bayreuth, June 16-17

Driving to Bavaria’s Bayreuth, we spent two days with Jochen and Irene von Feitlitzsch, with whom our friendship began in the 1960s, when Todd was a vice consul in Munich and Jochen was a university student there.  Irene took us on a bicycle tour of several new (to us) attractions in the city center, highlighted by a visit to the recently restored opera house, now included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List.  Margravine Wilhelmine, favorite sister of Frederick the Great (and, like him, a composer), commissioned the construction of the exquisitely baroque opera house as a means of enhancing Bayreuth’s reputation and her own.  She quite clearly succeeded!

Wilhelmine's opera house

No visit to Bavaria would be complete without beer and music.  Happily, Bayreuth was celebrating its annual Volksfest, where we were able to drink suitable quantities of the local brew, eat brathendl and wurst, and watch the carnival rides.  (We politely declined Irene’s invitation to go on Aristico.)  Appropriately for us and the Volksfest, the evening ended with fireworks.

The Volksfest and Aristico in full swing