Tram to bus to metro to bus to airplane to bus to train to 3-hour wait to train to train to car is a rough outline of Megan’s and my journey to a town called Fellbach which lies about an hour outside of Stuttgart in south-west Germany. We were headed to this town because Megan’s uncle had set us up with some friends of his who were from the area and had generously agreed to host us! In the midst of this journey we spend a couple hours in Stuttgart central where we saw some castles, and loads of German kids who were converging on downtown for some kind of Evangelical Children’s day.
Katja, the most closely connected of our Stuttgart crew, had us picked up by her boyfriend, Joachim, from the train station, and we were taken around Fellbach to visit Katja at her volleyball tournament, before heading back to her Katja’s parent’s house where we were almost immediately fed some delicious home-cooked foods (including Goulash, some regional swabian foods and a delicious pumpkin soup). Katja’s parents Ebbe and Karin joined us at the table, and I was given ample opportunity to show off my German in front of Megan, which I’ll admit felt pretty cool. They all spoke excellent English, but numerous times the conversation needed to switch to a hybrid German-English to get the point accross.
We then found our way up to the vineyards which Katja’s family has a stake in, and made our way around the beautiful hillsides rising over Fellbach and Stuttgart, from which we were given a brief panoramic tour of the area. We also made our way to tour a massive castle called Ludwigsburg castle. The tour was pretty cool, but I was far too tired to get the most out of it as I hadn’t slept since waking up in Rome at around 10am of the previous day.
We made our way back to the house where I was offered some delicious and local plum pie (how could I refuse) before heading into a massive nap. I woke up in time to head out to a seasonal wine-restaurant affiliated with the nearby vineyards and ate lots of meat and drank lots of wine. It was quite appropriate.
I was only in Stuttgart for a short time, but thanks to Megan’s hookups I had a really great, local experience. I would have liked to have spent more time in the area, but at this point I had little flexibility in my travels as I needed to leave from Munich on the 30th, and it was already the 27th. Surely enough, the next morning I was off to the Oktoberfest! How’s that for contrast?