Day 4 - Tuesday, 21st May 2024.

Stuttgart

We arrived in Stuttgart at almost 19:00 from Paris (Gar de’Est) where we were received by my wife’s friend with flowers, cake and chocolates for our first anniversary! We reached our hotel (Ibis Budget) by metro (U-bahn). After circling the block in search of a restaurant, for it was almost 21:00, we had dinner at a good Italian restaurant nearby (ARIA, Restaurante Enoteca). The Porche Design Centre was just 100m from our hotel! There were even some vine gardens.

The Ibis Budget was perhaps the cheapest accomodation in our Europe trip, a bit north of the main city centre, but quite comfortable. Room had a very heavy door, and it was our first encounter with unintutive Wuropean windows, which crack upwards and inwards. we had a cross ways bed above our twin bed accessible via a ladder. We kept banging our heads many times on the ramp. The toilet has no water supply, just toilet paper and a flush pot. the Bath was a seaprate space module type contraption. The tap was in the room itself which doubled as a dressing table of sorts. TV was near the window and attached to a sort of working desk. Area was really quiet. Beds were crisp and comfortable. It was often drizzling at times outside. Cars went super fast on the roads i noticed.

Day 5 - Wednesday, 22nd May 2024.

Stuttgart Ferhnsturm, Esslingen, Stadtbibliotek

We started our day with some cheesecake that wife’s friend had got us yesterday. We bought a day trip ticket from the nearest U-bahn station. Not used to lack of people at public places like the metro, Germany was a surprisingly good experience of lot of personal space. We stopped at Stadtbibliotek to checkout the super clean and well maintained, spotlessly white, state library. It was a tourist site in itself! We then started for the nearby town of Esslingen with the friend as our guide.

Esslingen had that small town charm and was a clam break from our city touring. We saw the old church, vineyards, casually strolling, coffee here cake there. We had a big brunch at 1582 restaurant, yep, founded in 1582! Food was delicious and never in Europe had we had such a big meal until then. The potatoe salad and Ratatouie was heavenly. We also ordered sparkling water for 8 Euros because why not!

It was drizzling when we started back from the pictureqsue town. We took the bus to a Ubahn station then stopped at the Stuttgart TV tower (Ferhnsturm). 11 euros ticket each, courtesy the friend, and we were up! A 360 degree view of the beautiful city. It was raining when we started back to the hotel, saying goodbye to our friend.

We were stuffed from the lunch so no dinner, and we slept early.