Stuttgart

Today when I woke up I saw the beginning of a very beautiful fall day, a blue sky, no clouds, and much sunshine. We had much rain during the last few days and I was thinking that the nice days this year are already over. I didn't want to waste one of the last sunny days by just sitting at home, so I decided to walk "Das Grüne U" (the Green U). Stuttgart has many parks in the middle of the city, and they've been working from 1920 to 1993 to connect some of them by bridges. I've been to some of the parks before, but I wasn't visiting all of them in one day, so this was my plan for today. I like the fact that there are huge areas of green just in the middle of the city.

But before I could get to the beginning of the Green U I had to cross two other parks. I spend the whole day in many different parks. And here are some pictures of the parks and of Stuttgart. I know, this has already been the topic of many other posts, but my blog is more like a diary, and that's what I did today. So, if you're not interested in pictures of parks, you probably want to go to the next blog in your blogroll...

Hoppenlaufriedhof
The Green U starts at the New Castle in the center of Stuttgart, it's about a 15 minute walk from my apartment to get there. At the end of my street there's an ancient graveyard. It hasn't been used for 130 years and has nice headstones, most of them are from the time of 1800. It's next to the city campus of my university, and crossing this graveyard is a shortcut to get to the campus, or to the center of the city. But I'm never taking this shortcut when it's dark or on halloween.

Cannstatter Wasen, which is over by tomorrow. You can see the Ferris wheel from up here. The wind was coming from that direction, the smell of popcorn and candy was everywhere.

This is Rosenstein Castle. Note to myself: If I ever construct a house for myself, I want an entrance like that.

And this is a part of the rose garden behind the castle.

And this is the ancient English garden.

It's unbelievable for me that these big meadows are in the center of Stuttgart.

Leibfriedscher Garten
The next park is the garden of former Villa Leibfried that was completely destroyed during WW II. They've restored the garden, and included the ruin. But I didn't take any pictures there.

Wartberg
Next park was Wartberg with its trick fountains. It's a great place, I've never been there before, but it's really cool. There are many trick fountains, and the entire area looks different every other minute. A fountain there, then there, suddenly everywhere ...

More fountains


Killesbergpark
Now we've arrived at the Killesbergpark, and somebody was waiting for me.



Ok, we've already left the Killesbergpark, this is the way back to my apartment. This isn't in the middle of Stuttgart anymore, this is outside of Stuttgart. I really like nature. Well, I grew up in a small village, I'm a country bumpkin ...

And I like forests, too.

Ok, we're at home again, I hope you're not too tired after 4,5 hours of walking. Please excuse me for a second, I need a shower ...

Hohenheimer Botanischer Garten
When I got out of the shower I got a call from Felix, the photographer of our gay magazine. He asked if I was up to go to the botanical garden of Stuttgart-Hohenheim University together with him. That was funny, he has never done that before, and we've never spent time together (except when we worked together at a project for the magazine). But he's nice, they have many tropical flowers and trees there, and because I wanted someone to talk to I agreed, so there was another park to see, and of course another castle: Hohenheim Castle.

I didn't take many pictures because I felt strange next to a professional photographer, and I guess you had enough pictures today. Anyway, I had a great time. It was a fabulous day, but now I'm really tired. Good night.