Stuttgart..A lazy day out.

We had a lovely sleep in this morning, what a luxury. Weather was again fine & pleasant. After breakfast we took my rear bike wheel, with the tyre already stripped off, to the bike shop to buy a new spoke to replace the one I broke yesterday. I left the wheel there  & asked them to put the new spoke in,
(about a 2 minute job) while we spent until 2pm having a relaxing day looking around Stuttgart, just the 2 of us. When I came to pick up the wheel, I was pleasantly surprised to find the spoke only cost 60 euro cents, unfortunately it cost 25.00 ($38.00 AUD) to install it. I think I will be installing my own parts in future.
Stuttgart is very modern but we did spend some time exploring some of the few old buildings left. Even these buildings have been rebuilt since the war as Stuttgart was also bombed into oblivion & was just a pile of rubble. It was a major target because of the Mercedes Benz factory, which was producing aircraft engines & other equipment.

 

I couldn't resist it any longer, as we walked past the train set in the Hauptbahnhof I put in a 1 Euro coin & was able to drive the trains for quite a while.

 

The fountain in front of the Stuttgart Schloss. It had very weather worn stones, so it looks like it may have survived the bombing.

 

A couple of the lions on the fountain, throwing up.

 

The front of the large'U' shaped Schloss.

 

The lovely courtyard of the museum building.

A large bronze horsey bloke of some apparent importance from 1426.

The detail is incredible.

 

The city mall which is several klms long.

 

Yvonne enjoys a free wine in a huge electronics store, that had free wine tasting, but no wine sales ???????

 

Inside one of the enormous shopping malls. You do not even know they are there, the outside looks like a plain office building, with no signs, but once inside they stretch on forever.

An exciting day in Stuttgart...

The weather was perfect, low 20s, sunny & no wind. Exitement began early when we caught the lift down to go and have breakfast. As luck would have it, our lift was full so we waited for another which we did not notice was going up instead of down. So we piled in with the other people & took a ride to the top floor, but instead of the door opening there was aloud bang & the lift fell 6 inches & then bounced, then all the numbers disappeared off the indicator & the lift slid rapidly down to the basement, it then started back up again & stopped, this was quite scary. Then nothing happened for a while so we pried the inner doors open, only to find ourselves between floors & unable to open the outer doors. We pressed the emergency call button & got no response, so we forced the lower part of the outer door open as we could just reach it, & called for help, no response. We again closed the inner doors & after a while the lift again decended to the ground floor, where the doors finally opened & we ran for our lives. ( not really, but we were now late to meet the others ) We cycled rivers & parks to the Mercedes museum, (pictorial below, boys only day ) & then cycled over to the Porche museum. (also pictured below). On the way to the Porche museum at about 10 klm from our hotel we had some more exitement.
( will the fun never end ? )
As we topped a long 5 klm hill climb I had a flat rear tyre, which is normally not a problem, exept that today, for the first time in history, I left all tubes, repair kits & tools back at the hotel, as we were only riding around locally.
( Of course this is when I would have the first flat tyre in 3 years ).
Luckily for me everyone had different size wheels than me & no one had a car valve pump anyway. In the end we installed a 21mm tube from Stewarts bike, in my 38mm tire & it had a presta valve that Mick could pump up. We lost 25 minutes to this incident, which wasn't too bad. The flat was caused by the original first day in Frankfurt when the derailleur went through the spokes. The damaged spoke finally broke this morning & the stump forced up through the band on the rim & penetrated the tube. So tomorrow it is off to the bike shop for parts & no more riding without spares. ( something I never do anyway )

 

Riding over a wooden covered bridge. over the river.

 

The first motor car ever built, from 1886.

 

A motor bike from the same era. It must have been fun riding this with no suspension & solid metal bound wheels, over the cobbles.

 

Admiral Bismarks personal launch, from the 1800s, powered by a Benz engine.

 

A very cool looking Benz tourer.

 

An interesting bus.( about the same era as mine )

 

A couple of very cool cars. There were many hundreds of cars & other machines. Far too many for this forum.

 

Even the lift inside the 8 floors of museum was very cool.

 

A bit of an interesting story for these vehicles. The red 2 door Merc belonged to Princess Dianna which she drove for 18 months but had to give back, because the English unions were outraged that she should be driving a foreign car.

The other is the Pope mobile he used while in Germany.

A Mercedes electric car which is commercially available here @ uses a hydrogen fuel cell to power its electric motor. It has a 400 klm range & a5 minute refuel.

 

Selfie in front of the car Yvonne is going to buy me for Christmas.

 

Lots of cars & every one has a story.

 

Best looking dude in the museum.

 

The outside of Mercedes museum.

 

Moving right along, the outside of Porche museum.

 

This wheel with built in electric motor comes from a car over 100 years old, when petrol was not readily available. I think we progressed backward.

 

A Porche tractor designed to travel between rows of fruit trees & sugar cane & do no damage.

 

This car is hung upside down to show the downforce of its design would hold it safely on the ceiling once it reaches 321 klm/hr, easily within its ability.

 

In the mid 90s Harley Davidson went to its EVO engines, designed by Porche & then became reliable.

 

A very fast car.

 

View of the city on our way home.

Bike...6klm Train...300klm

Not much to say today, we rode 3 klm to the station & then 3 klm to our hotel at the other end & in between rode 300klm on the train.
Stuttgart is a much more modern city, all grey, black, chrome & glass with many open squares, unlike all the other places we have been.
Todays blog is probably not worth reading. Tomorrow the ladies have a day out while the gents go to the Mercedes & Porche museums.

 

Leaving our lovely canal front home.

 

 

The station at Regensburg.

 

Yvonne doing what she does best when we travel.

 

 

A railside cemetary on the journey.

 

A model train set at the station. You put in a 1 euro coin & you can drive the train.

 

 

Stuttgart, onthe way to the hotel.

 

2 Days in Regensburg

Two busy full days in Regensburg, very relaxing with much to see & fine sunny weather. Tomorrow we take a train 300 klms to Stuttgart. We had always planned this part of the journey to be by train, as we have a lot of distance to cover. The boys are planning on checking out the both the Mercedes & Porche museum. The 2 days in Regensburg is a pictorial below. There may seem to be a lot of pictures but only a fraction of what we have seen is shown. We have only cycled 41 klms since we arrived here, to various venues, but hopefully we can still remember how to ride when the journey proper continues out of Stuttgart.

 

A barge just exiting a lock on the bypass canal of the Danube.

 

 

Its a tight fit for this boat entering the lock from upstream & needs careful aim.

 

View from the window of our room, as 2 barges pass going in opposite directions.

 

This barge is 220 metres long. It must be fun getting around bends in the river.

 

Another bridge with many lovers locks, but do you notice the difference between these & the ones in Paris that are knotted in great rusty clumps. In Germany things are done in an orderly fashion.

 

The stone bridge from the 1100s was not accessible on this trip as it was under repair.

 

 

A piece of Roman wall from the first century AD. The structure above is currently under repair.

 

A fourteenth century floor showing some early signs of wear.

 

The old Rathause, now a tourist information centre.

 

 

Everyone has window boxes. These people like purple.

 

 

A 12th century tower .

 

Yvonne has another cooling drink to wash down some bratwurst & sauerkraut.

 

 

A 10 klm ride out of town took us to Valhalla. a memorial built by King Ludwig in the Roman style. So you do not need to go to Greece to see the famous Roman ruins, since you can see an enormous completely intact version here in Germany & of course being in Germany it is perfectly maintained in 'as new' condition.

 

View out over the Danube from the steps of Valhalla.

 

 

The incredible massive & imposing front of Valhalla.

 

A lovely marble full sized angel beautifully carved, one of hundreds of sculptures in Valhalla.

 

 

Part of the inside, built in stunning pink marble.

 

The gang sits on the steps of Valhalla & take in the view.

 

Looking back toward Regensburg.

 

 

The imposing steps leading up to the monument.

 

 

A little strange , this is the inside of a cathedral that is now used as a museum.

In the foreground, a sarcophagus, in the back ground some large 15th century stone sculptures & then, WTF are 3 half motorbikes doing here ??????