Stuttgart

Today we decided to explore Stuttgart. We split up. Mark and Brad going to the Mercedes Benz Museum. Nikki, Shelly, Andrew and Jessica going to the Ludwigsburg Palace. The palace was still furnished, but unheated and cold. Much of the furniture, curtains and tapestries were original from the late 1800's. We managed to get to the english tour of the inside of the palace. The tour of the inside, we were informed, is over a mile in length.

Each room opens into the next such that you can look all the way down the hallway from one end of the building to the other, and it is a long way! There were a lot of original paintings. Nearly every room had something painted on the ceiling, whether cherubs or depictions of fables or just intricate designs. Nearly every room had an amazing hanging crystal chandalier. One interesting thing the guide told us is that to transport the chandaliers from Italy, they put them in a barrel and then filled it with melted butter. The butter was allowed to solidify and then the barrels were loaded up and moved. Pretty clever!

I thought the paintings with horses in them were interesting. People used to ride much smaller horses than they do now. They had shorter stirrups with their legs bent at a 45 degree angle and still their lower leg was hanging below the horses. I would guess they were somewhere in the 14-15 hand range. Usually they are depicted rearing up.

After the palace we went back to Stuttgart and found a shopping mall. We went inside and got lunch -- donner rolls, pommes (french fries), and then afterwards we had the spaghetti eis (ice cream with strawberry sauce) Jessica was hoping to find. The donner rolls and the eis were both very tasty. From there we drove downtown to a tack shop Nikki knew of. I got to go in and check out what a German tack shop was like. They are similar to the tack shops in the states, but some things are definitely improved. Their brushes, curries, and whips are definitely higher quality and cheaper than in the states. They had a dozen brand new Passier and Kieffer saddles against the wall. Their breeches are much more colorful. They had loads of vests for the rider. And of course the owners were very nice and spoke english very well. It was a fun experience for me.

On the way back to the house we got stuck in a 'stau' or German traffic jam. It is amazing how many micro mini cars you can get stacked up in a 3 lane road, with nobody moving. When we returned to the house we had good old American meatloaf and mashed potatoes for supper.