Exploring Stuttgart

Finally the sun is back. So yesterday I took advantage of the sunny (but still freezing) weather to explore parts of Stuttgart on foot. In the future we want to live near my office, which is about 25 minutes by subway from downtown Stuttgart. But for now I live with a coworker close to downtown Stuttgart.

Yesterday (Saturday) I wanted to visit an old family friend who happens to live in Stuttgart, but basically on the other side of Stuttgart. I decided to walk the roughly 10 KM accross the city.

First thing I noticed - at 9:30 the streets were basically still empty.  Only closer to the big streets there were cars driving around, but even when I passed through downtown Stuttgart there were almost less people than infront of my breakfast store back in Taipei at any given Saturday morning.

Second - this city is very similar to Taipei in regard to the surrounding hills/mountains, so from the place where i am living at the moment, i had to walk up a mountain before descending back into the valley where downtown is located. Then on the other side I had to ascend another hill up to about 480 m above sea level. I was rewarded with a great view of Stuttgart, especially after we went up the "Fernsehturm Stuttgart (TV Tower Stuttgart)" which is another 216 m high.

Here some impressions:

Basically empty streets on a Saturday morning around 11 AM

This area in the south of  Stuttgart (Degerloch) is so steep that in 1884 the "Stuttgart Rack Railway (German: Zahnradbahn Stuttgart)" was opened. It is the only urban rack railway in Germany. Unfortunately each time the tram came i didn't have my camera (phone) ready.

 A view from (almost) above:

 The view from the before mentioned "TV Tower Stuttgart"

This is a big sports complex with soccer stadium, tennis courts, ice ring, etc.

And here the TV Tower Stuttgart, which is the world's first TV tower built from concrete (and prototype for many towers of that kind all over the world).