Stuttgart

I recently spent 8 days in Stuttgart as part of an exchange, and really loved the city and all it had to offer. Most of what I loved about it was the other towns and places that they had in the area, which I will talk about in more detail below.

To be honest, I didn't spend a great deal of time in Stuttgart itself, although I did spend a long time in one of the many Starbucks they had. The main shopping street, Koenigstrasse, had many German shops as well as internationally known ones such as H&M, along with a handful of restaurants. I went to the art museum one day, which was right in the middle of town and easy to get to, and really enjoyed it.

One thing that really impressed me about Stuttgart was the public transport and how clean and reliable it was. I live in Newcastle upon Tyne, and I thought that our Metro was good, but in Stuttgart their S-Bahn and U-bahn are much cheaper, run very often and go all over the surrounding area. The family I was staying with lived in a town called Marbach several miles out of Stuttgart, but it was easy to get to town everyday on the S-bahn. There was only one problem while I was there, where some trains were cancelled because of an accident, but the system was good enough that we could easily get home by changing somewhere else along the way and getting a short bus ride. We also got a S-bahn and bus to the Ritter Sport chocolate factory several miles out of town, which was simple to do and al buses arrived quickly and efficiently.

Ludwigsburg, on a couple of lines on the S-bahn, is a pretty town, but mainly famous for its palace. The palace in Ludwigsburg has a beautiful garden and grounds, as is especially nice in the summer, when the flowers are in bloom. The town of Ludwigsburg also has many nice shops and restaurants, and I had a really good day out there.

This is the town where my exchange family lived, and I absolutely loved it. It is a really old traditional German town, with old style buildings and lots of restaurants and cafes serving local food. There is also a bar called 'Wunderbar', which I loved on sight because of the name, but which also has a great atmosphere and really great cocktails. Marbach is also the birthplace of the writer Schiller, who was as famous as Goethe apparently, and because of this there is a Schiller museum and lots of information available about him.

I really enjoyed my stay in and around Stuttgart, and would recommend it if you fancy a short city break, though I have no idea what any of the hotels are like.