Woke up at a respectable 7 AM. Had coffee, showered (very
hard water) and planned to walk around town in the morning and head to the
Mercedes Benz museum in the afternoon. But after seeing how hit it was getting,
we decided to start with the Mercedes Benz museum. We drove there and found
there was some sort of car show on the grounds of the museum. So, even before
we entered the museum we got an eyeful of a whole bunch of incredible cars.
After wandering around this outdoor car show in sweltering heat for a bit, we
headed into the museum and spent several hours wandering the museum. It is
really well done, providing not just a historical review of Daimler and Benz
companies, but also the historical context within which they developed their
various cars. I didn’t know that Ferdinand Porsche was the Chief Engineer for
Daimler and is responsible for many of their technological innovations. Later
in the day, I learned that his son, Ferry Porsche then really developed the
Porsche brand on its own. Ferry Porsche in turn was instrumental in developing
the classic Porsche design and the Volkwagen Bug.
It’s also a beautiful building and the museum is very well
arranged, with a great track that lets you go through everything in an orderly
manner. As a result, you spend more time in the museum and read a lot more. The
content was also well done with interesting bite-sized chunks all over the
place. Plus, of course, there are all the cars. The older cars are so exquisitely
beautiful that there was not a moment’s boredom during our three-plus hours in
the museum.
We came out and were hit by the incredible heat – temps in
the 90s and decided that it was still too early to wander the streets and
decided to visit the Porsche Museum. After grabbing a Radler (beer mixed with
lemonade) and some currywurst, we drove over there and enjoyed this museum too.
It probably wasn’t as good as the Mercedes Benz museum, but most likely because
they have a significantly shorter history of car development (Porsche was
established in 1948). Plus, Porsche settled on their design fairly early and
focused mostly on racing cars. So, the designs, amazingly have not changed as
much as you’d expect (or as much as was evident in the Mercedes Benz museum).
The original 1940s-50s Porsches don’t look drastically different than the more
recent Porsche 911, 924, and GTR. Still, it was a fun use of time and we
certainly were not ever bored.
As we were leaving, we found that the museum allows you to
rent Porsches for short periods. We could get a Carrerra or GTR for an hour for
only about 80 euros. We went back in as I thought that it would be fun to drive
a Porsche for about an hour, but they said since it was already 5:15 PM and
they close at 6 PM, it was too late. Of course, they’re closed tomorrow, so we couldn’t
even do it in the morning. Oh well, maybe next time.
We got back to the apartment and rested for a while before
heading out for Schlossplatz at about 8 PM. We got to the square, wandered for
a short time (it was still about 90 F at about 9 PM) and picked a Brauhaus for
dinner. We decided to go with traditional Schwabian food. I had a meat ravioli
(Maultaschen) while Sheila had Kassspatzle (a soft noodle with cheese). I also
had a local cloudy beer. The food was excellent, although I liked the great
tasting cheese on Sheila’s meal more than I did my own. We also had a
traditional fried apple rings and ice cream for dessert.
While eating dinner, we also watched the finals of the
Europe Cup 2016 soccer. Germany had just been eliminated in the semifinals by
France and so things were quite low-key. We finished dinner, walked back to the
apartment and finished watching the game – Portugal won 1-0.
Again, it’s midnight now and sweltering in the apartment. It’s
so humid. If only there was a fan, things would actually be reasonably
comfortable, but no such luck. We’ll sweat ourselves to sleep again.
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