The first day of driving...

...was completed without incident, well almost.

Mrs GPS is an exceptional lady and I don't think will give us any trouble on this trip


as she performed flawlessly.

We left Zurich around 8.45 and made our way out of town and soon we were travelling up a motorway towards the Germany border.

Sherry took us across the border and we "sped" on towards Stuttgart. While we


thought we were ripping along those in the fast lane were more of a blur as they made their way north in their Mercedes or BMW or Audi at a far faster clip.

Nevertheless we arrived at our hotel on the outskirts of Stuttgart around noon and booked in as our room was ready even though book in time was not before 3pm.

We were soon on a tram to the central city and after a quick bite at a kiosk near the station we went looking!

It was not too long before we turned into Koningstrasse which turned out to be a mall of around a kilometre or more and I have to say, much as I dislike shopping areas, that this was one of the nicest we have come across through our travels on this and previous trips.


At the end of the Strasse we climbed up to Karlshohe which is a park sitting above the city and which gave reasonable views of parts of the city, a city which sits in a valley


After relaxing for a while we then returned back down to the shopping centre and then walked over to Schillerplatz to look at the Neues Schloss and also the Altes Schloss (the old and the new castles)





before we went up the tower at the railway station, sponsored by Mercedes whose factory is located in Stuttgart, which gave great views across the CBD and


allowed a birds eye view of Koningstrasse and highlighted just how long the street actually is


Back on the tram we arrived back at Mohringen, dropped the backpack off and went out for a meal.

Stuttgart is the capital of the Baden-Wuerttemberg region which is also "home" to a group of people known as the Swabian and with that in mind we went to a restaurant serving traditional Swabian food, a meal which we thoroughly enjoyed in a delightful 300 year old building.

So ended a very enjoyable day - tomorrow we move onto Frankfurt.

Oops I nearly forgot to say what the almost was - as we arrived in Mohringen Mrs GPS advised of a turn in 100m but Sherry said to turn NOW so I did and forgot that I was driving on the other side of the road and I ended up driving straight towards a row of cars waiting at the lights!