Date: 29 – 31 August 2015

Modes of Travel: British Airways, DB Regional Bahn, S/U Bahn

Cast of Characters: Dan, Bruce, Brett, Hannah, Indira

Hotel: Mercure Hotel Stuttgart City Center

Day 1 –

Well this trip was a few months ago and so much has been going on that we never got around to writing up our visit. We have a few today so they will be shorter than usual but with all of the info you would expect!

We booked this trip last November so we could get away from my birthday. As it turns out this was the year of German city visits for us and Stuttgart did not disappoint.

The day started very early at the T5 pod parking and then we made it through bag drop, security and to the lounge pretty quick.

The flight was uneventful (Facebook tells me I really enjoyed and said it was one of my best, but I can’t say I remember it) and once we arrived we made our way to the city centre on the S-Bahn. Once we got to the hotel, Brett and Hannah’s room was ready but ours wasn’t, so we dropped our stuff in their room and headed out.

We did some research before the visit, but we were surprised to see that the Stuttgarter Weindorf was taking place. This is a great wine fair/market with local wines from around the area. It was a bit warm (30+) so we stayed out of the sun and enjoyed many glasses of wine and local food.

We decided to take a small rest and headed back to the hotel. I had one of the souvenir wine glasses and whilst speaking to the receptionist and getting checked in, I managed to smash the glass on the counter. Now it was an accident ( I was possibly a little pissed and I talk with my hands….), but for the rest of the weekend all I heard about was how I attacked the poor woman on the counter when all she was doing was trying to get our room sorted.

All I will say about the hotel is whilst the staff was nice, the room was not what we booked (we did later get moved) but the A/C did not work and was boiling. It was possibly one of my most uncomfortable stays in a hotel ever.

After a small break we headed back to the city in search of drinks and dinner. The Weindorf was packed, so we headed further afield and found a nice Mexican place called Enchilada. Not only was the food decent and massive portions, but the happy hour includes blended real fruit margaritas that are some of the best I have ever had.

After dinner we enjoyed a few more drinks and called it a night.

Day 2 –

Today was my actual birthday and as it is a Sunday and most stuff is closed we decided on a day trip somewhere. Engineering works got in the way so our first choice Strasbourg was out. Whilst we were preparing for this trip, we were also in the midst of moving to Scotland. Indira (the move manager at Bruce’s work) is based in Stuttgart so invited us to visit Tubingen which is about an hour out of the city for a few hours.

So we took the train out to Tubingen and met Indira. She took us for a walk around the city and up (and I do mean up it’s a hilly place) to the University. Which gave us some amazing views of the area.

On our walk back down we stopped off an Bioeissalon Gorza for some ice cream. This is the first place I have ever been that the pictures in the menu matched ( or looked better) and it was awesome with lots of fresh fruit and a cost that was really really reasonable.

We walked around the city a bit more and walked along the river, when it was decided we needed some drinks so headed off to the Gasthausbrauerei Neckarmüller which was just behind us. We had a few beers and it was time to head back.

Once we made it to the city it was happy hour at Enchilada so we headed back for a few pitchers of margaritas and decided on BlockHouse for dinner. We had a good experience at BlockHouse in Munich and this did not match the service was slow/poor and the food was just eh.

We walked back through the Weindorf after dinner but nothing caught our eye, so we decided to call it a night.

Day 3 –

We had originally booked the later flight as we thought we could do something on the Monday, but other than lunch we had time to kill so we took the S-Bahn to the end of the line and then around the city kind of like a open top bus tour without the commentary.

It was time for us to head to the airport and at this point Brett/Bruce headed to security and the Priority Pass lounge and as I had a bag, Hannah went with me as she was my guest in the BA lounge (Brett joined me last time). We all chilled in our respective lounges and waited for our delayed flight, which sucked but was even worse as Bruce had tight connection at Heathrow.

In the end we made it to Heathrow in time for Bruce to make his connection.

Overall it was a good trip and a city we would defo visit again in the future!