We made it to Stuttgart yesterday and have a good time so far. We've walked our butts off. Even I'm worn out, and I'm usually the last one to admit that!!

Yesterday we had schnitzel in an outdoor cafe in Kiehl, Germany which is the town only a short bit across the Rhine from Strasbourg. It was delish, and served so hot you could see the hot oil still glistening on the crispy breading on the pork. Honestly, I'm hooked, but I'll probably not eat it again at home. The guilt would be too much to bear. You could cheat though, almost (it would be a stretch) and order chicken-fried steak with cream gravy and call it schnitzel!!

We had spaetzle last night. Again I'm ruined. I loved it! I was flabbergasted to learn however that it's fresh egg-flour noodles that are boiled then sautéed in butter! No wonder we loved it. I may have more tonight. But actually, we are planning to have sausages and sauerkraut (now that's a healthy choice) tonight! The hotel has recommended a good restaurant.

Our hotel is nice but a big change from having an apartment-- it's SMALL and very close for 2 people for 3 days. No biggie, we'll be fine or at least we would be except our ac is not working. They don't know why and will try to fix it today. The hotel was fully booked last nite so we couldn't change rooms. They brought us a fan which made it bearable. The temp is not sweltering, thank goodness, but just not cool enough to sleep without the fan. 80 degrees-- yeesh!!

Later then next morning. . .
We went to the Mercedes Benz Museum today and amazingly, it was very good. Of course it showcased a great collection of automobiles, but it also featured what appeared to be a fair review of history including info about MB's involvement in the war. This is to say the museum was not concerned only with vehicles. The museum was ultra-modern and really worthwhile. Besides our morning exercise, and a wonderful lunch (at the place the hotel recommended for our dinner), the museum is all we did today. But we've totally had it. We've walked so much in the past week, our legs are in a permanent state of ache.

After the museum, it was too early to go back to the hotel so we bought a bottle of wine and some peanuts and went to the park. It was so, so nice. We Americans should learn how to regularly enjoy our parks. I'll tell you this, the Europeans sure know how to!

We picked up a big, really big, pocket sandwich and a salad on our way back from the park. We'll be in the room for the night tonight.

Next day . . .

We walked from our hotel at Mercure to Rosensteinpark (one word) a huge natural green space with walks and bicycle trails and which primarily features Wilhelma Zoological and Botanical Garden--undoubtedly the most fabulous, well-done, well-managed zoo and botanical garden we've ever seen. Per the Internet, this zoo and botanical garden is the only one of it's kind in all of Europe and is certainly one of the premier attractions in Europe. How lucky we are to have merely and naively stumbled upon this amazing wonder. The zoo features more than 8000 animals from over a thousand different species. We even saw chicks being hatched in an incubator (you must see the video). And we saw an exhibit featuring a slice of a fully active bee hive in which you could see the inner workings of the hive. The honey bees entered and exited the hive through a special 1-inch pipe to the outside world. Once outside they had a choice of over 5,000 plant species in the amazing botanical garden.

The grounds of this magnificent place that overlooks the north side of Stuttgart originally was the royal palace of King Wilhelm I of Wuerttemberg and which built in the period 1842 to 1853 as a Moorish garden (no wonder!)

What an unexpected and great day! Tonight is our last one in Germany -- looking for an authentic bier garten.

Guten abend for tonight.