August 3

Written August 8

Dear Friends and Family,

Story

We came to Stuttgart mostly to see car museums and factories, but we needed to see a bit of the town as well. Our hotel, the Hotel Ketterer, was right on the pedestrian zone and our Best Western membership gave us a great discount on the "penthouse". This was in fact a large room with a good size terrace, a terrace that looked out on the backs of other buildings - not even worth photographing, but it did serve as a nice venue for one picnic dinner. And the hotel staff were very pleasant.

As for tourist things, we did the cars (Mercedes & Porsche) and the Stuttgart Art Museum (see "Pictures") but all the rest was just walking on the streets, looking at folks, and wandering enough to get some good meals. (Marianne's going-in goal was to have some onion-roasted beef with spätzle noodles - a Stuttgart specialty. She succeeded. My goal was a birthday steak. I succeeded too. But the best part may have been just sitting at a street-side table, talking about the folks walking by. Lots of stories.

John and Marianne

Pictures

All from the Stuttgart Art Museum. The first exhibition, a 20 minute video called Black Moon, set the tone of a museum with high-quality art, albeit a bit unsettling. (Link to a description of Black Moon.) This stuff isn't to everyone's taste, but both Marianne and I liked almost everything. Maybe it was just the break from the prosaic art of car museums.

An art installation showing clothes from upolstery	Dark art from the 1930's	Artist sampling art.	A 1930's office building window I liked.
The works of Walter Stöhrer were featured, including a short video showing his creative process. On the one hand it seemed chaotic, but on the other, freely creative. We liked the impression both standing back and looking up close at details. Interesting, even if not everyone's taste.
The art museum itself was dramatic, from the large open spaces through the top-floor view.		The view gave us our best glimpse of the hilly city.

Links

Stuttgart Art Museum

Kettlerer Hotel (German, but it gives the location and, somewhere, an English link)