I’ve been wandering through the hustle and bustle of Stuttgart’s streets, where everyone works for Bosch, Mercedes or Porsche. I’m struck by the luminous brilliance of a Porsche 911 (early model of course) and a Gull Wing Mercedes, lit up by thousands of tiny lights. It’s a bit like Blackpool Illuminations, German style. In fact it is Germany’s Christmas Markets season and let’s face it Stuttgart is the city of automobiles. This is the home town of Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler. It was here in Stuttgart that Daimler discovered the combustion engine and where, in the 1920s, Ferdinand Porsche was invited to join the Daimler company as Technical Director.

This year for the Stuttgart Christmas Market the city is celebrating it’s heritage – the beautifully decorated Schloss Platz (Castle Square) radiates seasonal cheer. It’s early December and the Christmas market season is in full swing. Everywhere you turn there’s a ‘gluewein’ stall and a slightly intimidating array of sparkling Christmas trinkets. The pavements are filled with families and friends, people strolling, shopping, chatting and drinking.

My favourite ‘gluewein’ chalet has an old-fashioned horn and every time someone leaves a tip they hoot the horn. Brilliant, brilliant psychological marketing. When the klaxon sounds everyone cheers. It’s genius. Not to mention sowing the seed of tipping in the mind of every drinker in the environs.

Stuttgart is not high up on the list of the average tourist’s ‘must visit’ list and yet it probably should be. The city has elegant squares, several theatres and a couple of huge arenas (sponsored by Porsche and Mercedes)…. It’s also got a fantastic covered market filled with stalls selling every kind of culinary delicacy. I just bought myself a huge piece of parmigiano – half the price and twice the quality of what we can buy in the UK.

Once the shopping frenzy of the Christmas Markets had worn off, Lucy and I headed for the Stuttgart Art Museum housed in an elegant neo-classical building in the heart of the city. What a great treat awaited us there. A gentle canter through three centuries of art, served in manageable bite-sized pieces. A joy!

We started in the 18th century Italy room, roughly around 1730 (ish) and emerged at the end of our visit in the 1960s ……from Canaletto to Kandinsky, with a healthy portion of Impressionism, it’s all here in the Stuttgart Art Gallery. The first painting to catch my eye was a very famous Canaletto painting of ‘The Molino at Dolo’ a painting that I know very well. I did not know there were two paintings by Antonio Canale (known as Canaletto) of this subject. The other painting of ‘The Molino at Dolo’ is in The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Here’s the Stuttgart version:

At first glance it looks identical to the canvas in The Ashmolean (Oxford). However the one in Stuttgart is properly displayed, correctly lit and a joy to behold. It hangs at eye level making it very easy to examine carefully the characters, colours and perspectives of the painting. It is easy to observe the small group, two ladies and two gentlemen standing on the left hand side of the canvas. One lady is being shielded from the sun by a parasol. There’s a young man sitting on the wall, with the mill pool behind him. There’s a boy fishing. The overall painting is of the mill and water wheels built and operational on the River Brenta in the early 18th century. The river behind is filled with boats including the famous pleasure cruiser known as the ‘burchiello’. This was a boat that sailed between Venice and Padova offering it’s aristocratic passengers entertainment and music, gambling, flirtations and all manner of social amusements. To the left in the top of the picture is the bell tower of Dolo. One of the reason’s that this painting is so interesting for me, is that the same scene can still be viewed today, almost 300 years later (see below). This is an area I love, the meandering waterway that makes it’s way from Padova towards Venice. A place where wealthy Venetians built their summer homes to escape the heat of Venice in July and August.

_{Left (above) Canaletto’s Dolo View with Burchiello – painting at Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Centre Grand Tourist + Educated Traveller Janet Simmonds in Dolo, Veneto (2019). Right Il Molino, Dolo – restorated water wheel on Brenta Canal (2019)}

The next day we were back in a Christmas markets frame of mind. This time we took the train out of Stuttgart to the small town of Esslingen where a very special market with a medieval theme attracts visitors from all over Germany. Everything is authentic! Stall holders wear medieval costumes, there’s a fortune teller and a blacksmith, there’s even a knife sharpener. Local people have their kitchen knives sharpened here each year. For the children there’s archery, catapults and even small axes (quite sharp ones) that you throw at wooden targets.

_{One of the most popular Christmas Markets has a Medieval Theme and takes place in Esslingen}

As we headed east towards the Schwabian Alps, a castle began to appear through the mist, clinging precipitously to a rocky outcrop. There are many castles in this area, some in ruins, some not, but all most definitely dominating the landscape. Local people come here to hike and to collect mushrooms, to enjoy the fresh air and explore the forests. If you hike into the Schwabian Alps and keep going (southwards) you’ll come to Austria eventually.

_{Hiking and woodlands and fresh air in the northerly fringes of the alps…..}

When I first arrived in Southern Germany, where I don’t speak the language, I was actually rather negative about the area, but when I started to discover the surrounding countryside my view changed completely. Then when I realised that one of my literary heroes WG Sebald was born and lived here as a young man in the ‘Allgau’ area of Southern Germany, not too far from here, well then I was hooked.

If you’ve enjoyed my meanderings through Southern Germany you might also like:

• Canaletto and Venice
• Burchiello on the Brenta
• Venice – Casanova, Casinos & Canaletto
• Travels with my Dog – Sasha considers Germany and Austria
• Happy Reading!
• #grandtourist #educatedtraveller #journeys

11th December, 2023