I lived in a village in the Swiss Alps for two years when I was a little girl and I remember the delicious crunch of the new fallen snow under my shoes on a cold, still Christmas Eve when I was allowed to attend midnight Mass in the village church. The bells rang sharp and clear in the frosty air, the stars twinkled in the dark sky and I knew I would soon see my Christmas presents. All was well with my wee world.

All that, as well as the larger world around me, is much changed. But a night in December, on a snowcovered mountain high above Zurich, its lights aglow in the valley below, brings back the memory of that Christmas Eve.

The Christmas markets, special treats of the season in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, evoke the Christmas in a child’s imagination. A grownup’s, too. A funicular ride to the top of another part of the Alps above Innsbruck in Austria and a romantic Christmas market on the tiny Isle of Women (Fraueninsel) in the Chiemsee in Bavaria spell an Alpine Christmas as it ought to be.

“Every Southerner knows the past is not dead,” the novelist William Faulkner famously said, “it’s not even past.” Not just for Faulkner’s kinsmen, but for all of us at Christmas. The Christmas season in the German speaking world begins with the Christmas markets, usually held from the beginning of Advent in late November to Dec. 23 or even into Christmas Eve, an ancient tradition that originated in Germany, with credit going to Dresden as the oldest market dating from 1434. In fact, an earlier market took place in Bautzen, Saxony, in 1384 and an even earlier December market is recorded in Vienna in 1294. Today, there are Christmas markets all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as in the United States where the largest is in Chicago.

Germany’s large cities, such as Dresden, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Frankfurt and Munich all have numerous markets, large and small. In Munich, Marienplatz, the city’s central square, is a busy warren of stalls. Crowds of marketgoers jostle one another for a look at a crystal ornament, a piece of jewelry, or a hot sausage to go with the cup of gluehwein.

Nearby is the medieval market, less noisy and redolent with the fragrance of flammbrot in the oven, a pizza like bread topped with meats or cheeses and baked in a wood burning oven. Everything is hand-made; shopkeepers and demonstrators dress in medieval costumes, lending stalls a Gothic air.

A smaller market specializes in nativity figures and scenes. One of the newer markets is located in the courtyard of the splendid Royal Residence. The most innovative of Munich’s market is Tollwood, on the huge field where the annual Oktoberfest in held. Tollwood was organized in 1991 and combines traditional booths with a wealth of international ones, some outdoors and dozens of others in tents, lighted from outside in bright colors. Huge sculptures adorn the grounds. Tollwood is a site for theatrical performances and in the bar-café tent, Munich’s music scene plays along with beer and sausages.

In Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city, the chief market is in the railroad station. An enormous fairy-tale Christmas tree, adorned with thousands of sparkling Swarovski crystal ornaments, presides over the market, the largest indoor market in Europe. Truly a wonder to behold.

Smaller markets are scattered throughout the city. On one of the downtown squares, just off Zurich’s famous Bahnhofstrasse shopping street, a “singing Christmas tree” entertains passersby in the late afternoon. The members of a Zurich gospel choir sing American gospel songs, swaying to the music in tiers in front of a large tree.

In Innsbruck, Austria, the Christmas market has taken over the Old Town. Stalls are set up beneath the vaulted stone arcades, leading to stalls in the narrow streets and alleys. Enormous replicas of fairy-tale figures adorn many of the second and third floors of the Old Town houses. The children are especially delighted.

Innsbruck, the capital of the state of Tirol, was once a powerful independent state, and in the 15th century the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. Tirol was divided at the end of World War I when the southern part was ceded to Italy, and on a three-day weekend Innsbruck is overrun with Italians up to shop at the Christmas market and to enjoy the Austrian hospitality. Tiroleans are open and friendly to visitors.

Skiers get out early on the northern and southern slopes surrounding the city, the site of the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics. Snow bunnies can ride up thousands of feet on the Hungerburg funicular and the ascent of the cable car that would leave James Bond breathless. At the top, there’s a splendid view of the city and a comfortable café-restaurant from whence to watch the skiers glide down the mountainside.

Visitors don’t have to climb to the top of the mountain to visit the spectacular Bergisel ski jumping stadium on the outskirts of the city. Designed by Iraqi born Zaha Hadid in 2002, the ski jump is used in January for a skiing event; in the summer, athletes train on a special plastic covering.

But perhaps the real charm of Christmas markets lies in the small towns and villages of Bavaria and Tirol. In Berchtesgaden, a historic old market town that has long been a winter and summer resort, the past is both dead and alive. Berchtesgaden was a favorite of Hitler’s. The houses occupied by Hitler and his Nazi henchmen were all destroyed at the end of World War II, with the exception of a hotel used by the Nazis. Tourists can visit Hitler’s bunkers beneath the hotel, and nearby is a small museum reflecting Hitler’s stay. The grim, gray Eagle’s Nest remains a curiosity, but more for its precarious perch on the mountaintop than for its association with the Nazis. The 20th century significance of the town is not mentioned in brochures or by tourist organizations. The locals want this past to stay dead.

Faulkner’s words come alive, however, in the curious ancient Christmas tradition on the feast day of St. Nicholas. As a rule, children leave their shoes outside their bedroom doors on the night of December 5th in anticipation of goodies left by St. Nick. In Berchtesgaden, however, it’s the white-bearded Bishop Nicholas who roams through the village accompanied by a crew of fearsome buttnmandl and krampus, the former covered from head to tow in straw, the latter in fur with both groups wearing hideous masks with a long red tongue that frighten more than the village children. Attached to their backs are enormous cow bells weighing up to 45 pounds that clank in cacophony as they run through the village streets with long switches in hand. Anyone in the path of these young men is subject to a blow on the legs — not a gentle one – and having black coal smeared on his or her face. Sometimes a girl is cornered and pushed to the ground; a child screams under the force of a blow to his legs. This is a violent reminder of a barbaric past, despite the concept that the original purpose was to drive out evil spirits, so beware.

Berchtesgaden still honors the coming of the Christ child by ringing bells and Christmas shooting, a custom dating back to the 17th century. Guns are fired every afternoon at 3 during the week before Christmas, to the accompaniment of church bells.

Not far from Berchtesgaden is Bad Reichenhall, a small spa town made rich by its saline springs. In the early 20th century, King Ludwig I of Bavaria built saltworks and a spa house in pseudo medieval style. The special Christmas market in Bad Reichenhall, where the Reber bakery and restaurant claim to make the original Mozartkugel (chocolate marzipan balls) sold everywhere in Salzburg, is an indoor craft market held in the graceful town hall in the second weekend of Advent.

As silent as Berchtesgarden is noisy, the lovely Fraueninsel (Isle of Women) Christmas market entices visitors from neighboring towns. The island on the Chiemsee is populated by a beautiful old Benedictine convent (now used as a school), a few hotels and restaurants, a handful of charming cottages and, at Christmas time, a Christmas market sprawling over the entire little island. Lit by candles and torches, the market is a magical place, especially when snow falls. In the cemetery adjacent to the convent, candles flicker in red glass containers beside each grave. This custom is honored as well in the Berchtesgaden cemetery.

Candles, nativity scenes, special pastries, wooden Christmas tree ornaments and Christmas trees galore are part of the Bavarian, Tirolean and Swiss traditions. In these regions, children are traditionally not allowed to see their tree before sunset on Christmas Eve, but the decorations and lights everywhere, and the festive atmosphere of the Christmas markets create excitement and anticipation that goes well beyond anything commercial. Christmas is still taken seriously here, and when the bells ring out with the message of the Christ child on Christmas Eve, everyone knows something special is about to happen.

When You Go:

United Airlines flies nonstop from the U.S. to Munich and Zurich. Swiss flies from New York nonstop to Zurich. Lufthansa flies from the U.S. to Munich.

Train connections between Munich, Innsbruck and Zurich are frequent and convenient. Tickets can be purchased in the U.S. from RailEurope at www.raileurope.com.

The post Christmas Markets in the Alps appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Asparagus and Wine Festivals

May is white asparagus season in Germany. The plump stalks of the sweet, delicious vegetable are paired with Hollandaise sauce, or butter, and sometimes ham and boiled potatoes. They are on every restaurant menu, in every grocery store, in every market. The season is short – from April until June 26. When it’s over, it’s over.

Silvaner is the Franconian grape of choice for a wine to accompany these lovely asparagus. Germans like slightly sweet wines but wines from both the Silvaner and Mueller Thuergau grapes can be fine and dry. Both grape types produce perfect wines to accompany those fat white asparagus.

The wines of the Mosel and Rhine regions have a long-standing international reputation. Now the wines of other German regions, old, but obscure in recent years, are making their mark.

In Franconia, one of Germany’s major wine producing regions, May is the month of wine festivals. Every May, Wuertzburg, the capital of Franconia, celebrates its wine heritage in the town square. Wine princesses wander through the crowd and dozens of booths offer delicacies such as deep-fried elderberry flowers and a variety of sausages. Tents shelter long wooden tables and benches, shared by everyone, locals and visitors alike. Good humor abounds.

Wuerzburg, Franconia’s Capital

Wuerzburg is just an hour from Frankfurt by fast train. It’s a good place not only to explore the vineyards and cellars of the city, but also to start a wine tour of the region.

The Franconia region is famous for its flattened, round bulbous green wine bottles, called “bocksbeutel.” The name, used since the 18th century, derives either from the sack (beutel), used to carry prayer or song books in medieval times, or from its shape which Franconians see as similar to the scrotum of a ram – “bock” in German.

Grape-growing began in Franconia in 777 A.D on a land grant from Charlemagne. The oldest vineyard site is the “Wuertzburg stein,” and there’s a single bottle of a 1540 Steinwein, or stone wine, said to be the oldest still drinkable bottle in the world, and stored in the cellars of the Buergerspital (Citizens’ Hospital of the Holy Ghost). But is it really still drinkable? In all likelihood, no one will ever know. (If it has turned to vinegar, to whom would you send it back?)

There are three important wine cellars in Wuerzburg: the Buergerstpittal, the Juliusspittal (both medieval charity hospitals for the sick, the poor and the needy) and the cavernous 12th century cellars beneath the elegant prince-bishops’s Residence, which is graced with a magnificent staircase and a huge ceiling painting by Giovanni Tiepolo.

All three cellars have cask-lined tunnels, illuminated by candles. Many of the casks are beautifully carved. All three offer tours with wine tastings. Although most tours are in German, English guides can sometimes be arranged.

The Buergerspital dates from 1316. The first vineyards were acquired in 1334 to finance the hospital. Every man and woman in hospital was, and still is, entitled to a daily liter of wine. The hospital continues to function and specializes in geriatric rehabilitation.

The Juliusspital was built in 1576 on the grounds of a Jewish cemetery. Its wine estate has grown considerably over 400 years and is the second largest in Germany. Contemporary sculptures, ancient trees and a Baroque fountain, designed at the beginning of the 18th century by Jacob von Auvera, grace the gardens. The rococo pharmacy, which was in use from 1767 until 1970, is open to visitors. The painted ceiling, pots, jars and other furnishings are original.

Although Wuerzburg was heavily bombed towards the end of World War II, the city has been reconstructed. The old bridge over the River Main, reminiscent of the Charles Bridge in Prague, links the two sides of town. On one side is the rebuilt old city; on the other, up on a hill, is the Marienberg citadel, now a museum dedicated to the cultural and artistic history of the Main river region.

The vineyards of the region are just outside the city, as are near-by picturesque villages such as Iphofen, with its hillside vineyards, intact medieval walls and towers. Walking tours through the vineyards are easily arranged.

German Champagne (Sekt)

Though no one sings with happy enthusiasm of “the night they invented sekt,” bubbly is magic wherever it is found, and every teenage girl remembers how her first sip tickled her nose and stirred innocent imagination.

In Germany, sparkling wine is called “sekt,” a term coined in 1926 when the French government prohibited the use of the term “champagne” for any wine produced outside the region of Champagne in France.

The origin of the word “sekt” may come from the Latin “siccus,” meaning “dry” or from the French “sec,” but a merrier version holds that a famous Berlin actor, calling for a glass of bubbly, invoked a line from Shakespeare’s “Henry IV”: “Give me a cup of sack, rogue.” Since “sack” in German is translated as “sect,” the name stuck.

In the tiny town of Freyburg in the eastern part of Germany, Rotkaeppchen produces almost half of all German sparkling wine. Vineyards here have been producing grapes for more than a thousand years, growing on steep, terraced slopes, between ancient stone walls and among small huts. The huts, some nearly 500 years old, are mostly used to store equipment and to shelter vineyard workers from the wind and rain.

The bottles of Rotkaeppchen – it translates to “Little Red Riding Hood” – are capped with red foil. The company had a sekt state monopoly under the East German government until reunification, and produced inferior wine. Since 1990, Rotkaeppchen has been in private hands and the quality is much improved. The company offers tours daily at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. The five euro tour includes a glass of excellent sekt and an introduction to how sekt is made through in-the-bottle fermentation. Rotkaeppchen’s five levels of cellars house an elaborately carved wooden 1896 barrel, towering three stories high. It contains enough wine to fill 160,000 bottles.

Radebeul, a Saxony town down the road from Dresden, is home to Schloss (Castle) Wackerbarth, where the 18th century Count of Wackerbarth started wine cultivation with the purchase of several hillside vineyards in 1836. The wine company is now owned by the Saxon state. The elegant, small Wackerbarth castle has been renovated, the winery modernized. Guests can watch the classic riddled (turned by hand) method champenoise. The gardens are open for visitors and tours are by appointment.

The Naumburger Wein & Sekt Manufactur is a single-owner operation. Shortly after the reunification of Germany, Andreas Kirsch purchased a 19th century sandstone building on the banks of the Saale River just outside the town of Naumburg, with cellars and miles of tunnels, some dating to medieval times, built by monks of a nearby monastery. Mr. Kirsch’s cellar, lit by candles, is crowded with casks and bottles of sparkling wine fermenting for the nine months required by law. The winery operates a four-room bed and breakfast.

Naumburg is a medieval cathedral town, graced by a magnificent town square, impressive burger houses, fortifications and a splendid cathedral. Thirteenth-century statues of its founders line the cathedral walls, including Margrave Ekkehard and his beautiful wife Uta, who is said to be the Nazi-era prototype of the ideal German woman.

Every year since the 16th century, on the last weekend in June, the city celebrates the Hussite Cherry Festival, commemorating the fictitious siege of Naumburg by the Hussites in 1432. A teacher is said to have led his pupils outside the gates of the beleaguered town to beg the Hussite commander for mercy. The commander granted their request and gave the children cherries.

A few miles north lies the site of the Goseck Circle, the oldest archaeological evidence of astronomic observation in the world, built 7,000 years ago by Neolithic farmers. The Goseck ring consisted of four concentric circles, a mound, a ditch, and two wooden palisades with gates facing southeast, southwest, and north to mark the winter solstice. The modern ring is a reconstruction of the wooden palisades.

Ancient Pre-History

The Nebra sky disc, a 3600 year old bronze plat depicting the cosmos of the world, was discovered near the Goseck Circle. The disc is now in the Halle State Museum of Prehistory.

Wine tours in eastern Germany offer a visitor more than wineries, vineyards and tastings. There are wine and music festivals, castles, ancient market towns, picturesque village and beautiful landscapes. There’s good food and excellent wines, both white and red.

The lovely old town of Weimar lies between Franconia and the Saale-Unstrut region where Naumburg and Freyburg are located. The short-lived Weimar Republic was founded here. It is the town of Goethe and Schiller, and their houses are open to visitors. The city boasts several excellent museums and baroque palaces.

If Wuerzburg is the beginning of a wine tour of Franconia and Saale-Unstrut, then Dresden may well be the grand finale. It’s a city not to be missed with its splendid museums, grand opera house, beautiful churches and stunning new synagogue, as well as a profusion of restaurants, cafes and shops.

For more information, see www.germany.travel and www.germanwines.de.

The post The Sparkle of German Wine Tours appeared first on Traveling Archive.

By 1917, the war was not going well for the Allies.

“I am waiting for the Americans,” said French General Philippe Petain. His wait was rewarded on June 26, 1917, when the first 14,000 untrained, ill-equipped young Americans arrived to fight in France. By the end of the war in 1918, that number had grown to 2 million well trained troops, more than 50,000 of whom left their lives on the battlefields of the “Great War,” as World War I was known.

World War I battles in northern France live on in memory: Verdun, the Somme, the Marne, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel. While many were fought before the United States entered the war, American volunteers as soldiers, nurses, ambulance drivers and pilots were part of the war from its inception in 1914.  The Lafayette Escadrille (which became part of the United States Army Air Service in 1918) was active in the 1916 battle of Verdun, as were American ambulance drivers. Anne Morgan, daughter of J.P. Morgan, raised funds and set up a network of relief organizations to assist civilians left without food or shelter by the German invasion of northern France.

Today, grass and wild flowers blanket the valleys;  the verdant rolling hills with their lush forests belie the reality of 100 years ago, when the hills were bare and the battlefields were a moon-like terrain covered with trenches, barbed wire, shell holes and the bodies of dead and dying young men. A century later, bullets and bones continue to be recovered from these battlefields.

A visit to some of the battlefields, museums, memorials and cemeteries is a fascinating and moving experience. Of the countless places to visit, here are a few highlights.

Verdun

A good place to start is in Verdun, an attractive small town in northeastern France on the Meuse River, and the site of the longest battle of the war from January to December 1916. Verdun had been surrounded by 19 forts, similar to Washington D.C. at the time of the Civil War. Verdun’s two main attractions are the Douaumont Fort and the underground Citadelle (fortress). The fort was designed to hold 600 soldiers. During World War I, 3000 men lived there without electricity, running water, and a hand-cranked ventilation system. The noise, vermin, stench and lack of fresh air literally drove men to madness. Although it is empty today, a visitor gets a sense of what conditions must have been like at the time.

In the 17th century underground Citadelle, visitors glide through two miles of underground galleries in small electric carriages, stopping at audio-visual sites where holograms depict soldiers, nurses, bakers, corpsmen and others going about their duties and leisure moments.

The imposing Douaumont Ossuary on a nearby hill, contains the bones of 130,000 unknown French and German soldiers, visible through small ground level windows.

The Somme and the Aisne

Visitors can enter the underground galleries of the Caverne du Dragon (Dragon’s Cave) in the Aisne region where both French and German armies lived for several months in 1917 in darkness, surrounded by the stench of gas and decaying bodies, spying on each other.  From the visitor center on top, there is a splendid view of the Aisne valley.

The Chemin des Dames (the ladies’ path) on the California Plateau was a frontline position in the Aisne battles from the beginning to the end of the war. It was the site of a devastating French defeat in 1917, resulting in a mutiny by the French army. The Chanson de Craonne (Song of Craonne), named for a village destroyed during the battle, is a ballad decrying the misery of the French soldiers. It was prohibited from public performance in France until 1974. Alan Seeger, the American poet who joined the French Foreign Legion, is said to have written his poem “I have a rendezvous with death” at the Chemin des Dames.

Trenches, although tempered by vegetation, still zig-zag through the countryside, some only 40 to 60 yards between enemy lines. Originals can be seen in the St. Miheil salient, at Bois Brule (burnt wood) in the Marne region, and at Belleau Wood in the Aisne. A reconstructed fortified trench which shows mess and first aid dugouts, can be visited at La Main de Massiges (the hand of Massiges) site near the Champagne forest.

In the pretty town of Albert, tableaux of battlefield life can be seen in the underground tunnel (built in the 13th century to protect the populace from invading forces) of the Museum of the Somme. The exhibits, pertaining mostly to British forces, contain artifacts, weapons, tools and other equipment.

Nearby in Thiepval is the imposing British brick and stone Memorial to the Missing, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. The memorial commemorates the 72,205 men of the British and South African armies who died or were missing in action between July 1915 and March 1918.

Museums to Visit

Three fine museums to visit are the Memorial in Verdun, the Historical Museum of the Great War in Peronne, and the Franco-American Museum in Chateau Blerancourt. The Verdun Memorial  exhibits artifacts of war and means of transportation, photographs and a series of interactive kiosks.

The Peronne museum offers a fascinating perspective of the three warring nations – France, Britain and Germany – through civilian and military artifacts, posters, works of art, documents, weapons, uniforms, household goods, toys and archival films. Featured is an exhibition of 50 war etchings by Otto Dix.

The Franco-American Museum in the Blerancourt chateau  was created by Anne Morgan, who purchased the ruined chateau in 1919, where she and her staff had been billeted during the war, and turned it into a museum to celebrate the long friendship between France and the United States.

The museum has a remarkable collection of 19th and 20th century pantings and sculpture, including a large,  elegant sculpture of George Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon. It specializes in works by American artists painting in France, and French artists who worked in the United States. The chateau is surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Cemeteries and Memorials

Cemeteries dot the landscape. The American Battle Monuments Commission operates and maintains American cemeteries, memorials, monuments and markers in 16 countries. The largest American graveyard in Europe is the Meuse-Argonne cemetery at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon where 4,246 Americans lie.

A new interpretation center was opened on November 11, 2016 to explain to visitors the history of the Meuse-Argonne offensive and its critical importance. Nearby is the Montfaucon American monument, a massive granite column soaring 120 feet into the sky above the ruins of a former village. If you have the strength to climb the 234 steps to the top, there is a splendid view of the territory conquered by the Americans in the Meuse-Argonne offensive of 1918.

The cemetery of Belleau Wood lies on a hillside, its graves surrounded by flowering plants, with a chapel at the top of the hill. The remains of shell holes and trenches lie along a hiking path in the wood.

A bronze memorial at the entrance to the wood commemorates the fearless 4th Marine Brigade which fought and died there and around nearby Chateau Thierry in the summer of 1918.

Non-War Sites

But a visit to the Western Front is not limited to the war sites. Reims, built by the Romans in 80 B.C., is France’s art deco city. It was badly damaged by German shells but was reconstructed. The kings of France were crowned in the city’s magnificent cathedral with its famous smiling angel on the portico.  The history of the cathedral is brought to life at dusk when the “son et lumiere” (sound and light) program starts on the facade.

The Carnegie Library, built in the 1920s in the center of town near the cathedral, is a lovely art deco public institution, well worth a visit. (Reims is also the site of the German unconditional surrender at the end of World War II on May 7, 1945, in what was Reims’ technical college. Today, it is a museum with the signing room intact.)

Reims is the seat of the champagne trade and a visit to the Taittinger House offers more than a taste of fine bubbly. The tour of the facility includes the underground vaulted Gallo-Roman limestone cellars, used as a hospital for French soldiers during the war, which have returned to their original use as champagne cellars.

Amiens is also a city, like Reims not far from Paris, in the Somme region, with a splendid cathedral. Inside is a marble weeping angel. Near the cathedral is the Jean Trogneux chocolate shop owned by the parents-in-law of French president Emmanuel Macron, which specializes in plump macaroons unlike the Parisian variety.

Amien’s Hortillonnages is a patchwork of floating gardens, formerly market gardens now dedicated primarily to flowers. Flat bottomed boats take visitors through the canals for a relaxing journey of delight.

It is said that the best madeleines in France are made in the village of Commercy in the Meuse region, and many shops in the area carry them.

In Verdun, visitors can take a tour of the Braquier factory, where the delicious sugar coated almonds (dragees de Verdun) are made, and then sample some of the products.

Picardy, as the region was known, has excellent regional wines, charming villages with fairytale castles, good hotels and many restaurants offering local specialties. Legend has it that in 1916, a British soldier came upon a woman tending her roses in a village in the Somme. Struck by the contrast between the war and the peaceful scene, he wrote a poem, “The roses of Picardy,” later set to music by Haydn Wood. The battlefields and the roses are still there.

If You Go

Air France flies nonstop from the U.S. to Paris. Its premium economy class, between economy and business, offers comfortable seats, foot rests and other amenities. The staff, both on the ground and in the air, is exceptionally pleasant and helpful.

The Chateau des Monthairons is conveniently located near the Aisne and Somme sites. It is an elegant hotel with attractive rooms and a fine kitchen,  located in a serene, beautiful park. The crickets sing you to sleep and the robins chirp you awake to a sumptuous breakfast.

For more information go to:

Meuse Tourist Board

Aisne Tourism Board

Somme tourism Board

The post One Hundred Years After the U.S. Entry Into World War 1: Museums, Monuments and Memorials appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Stuttgart, birthplace of the automobile, is a city of contrasts, a combination of the old and new. It’s an industrial city with a rich cultural heritage. Badly bombed during World War II, the city still has some of its old buildings intact, or restored, and while it has neither the graceful charm of Munich nor the vibrant energy of Berlin, it is nevertheless a city of verdant hills, parks and a wealth of tourist attractions. Where else will you find a museum honoring the noble pig?

It is also a convenient place to stop for a few days while traveling through Germany by train, as Stuttgart is a hub. Travelers from Paris to the Bavarian cities of Munich and Augsburg, for example, must change trains at Stuttgart. Trains run from here in all directions, not only in Germany but also to Vienna, Basel and Milan, among others. The railroad station, currently being renovated, is in the center of town, with excellent public transportation.

Stuttgart lies in the center of a bowl, surrounded by the green of hills and gardens, and even a vineyard with its typical vintners huts. Villas dot the hillsides. Nearby are castles and other attractions. An on-and-off bus tour gives visitors an excellent overview of the town, the zoo and botanical garden, the municipal vineyard, museums and important buildings.

The number-one tourist attraction is the spectacular, gleaming Mercedes-Benz Museum, which offers visitors a tour of the 126 years of the automobile, invented in Stuttgart (apologies to Henry Ford and Detroit) by Karl Benz and Nikolaus Otto, who independently developed the gasoline internal combustion engine in the late 1870s. By 1901, Germany was producing 900 automobiles every year.

The museum is reminiscent of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in that visitors walk down a circular ramp from floor to floor. The eighth floor has the earliest automobiles, engines and machines built by Mercedes’ forerunner company; the bottom floor shows the latest models. In between are collections of racing cars, town cars, and vintage models. Drawings of designs, photographs and the history of the automobile line the walls of the ramp.

The Mercedes-Benz Arena nearby, built in 1933 during the Nazi time, now hosts international soccer games. Porsche is the second automobile factory in Stuttgart. The Porsche Museum opened in 2009 and offers views through glass walls of engineers at work on new models.

But Stuttgart’s museums are not just about cars. There’s a wealth of contemporary and classic paintings and sculpture, ethnological exhibits, musical instruments, natural history and viniculture.

A tall, elegant Alexander Calder mobile graces the square in front of Stuttgart’s new modern museum. The museum displays the work of many contemporary German painters and sculptors, as well as works by Otto Dix and a fine selection of paintings by Dieter Roth, who taught at the Rhode Island School of Design. One curiosity is a small chamber made entirely of beeswax. There’s an excellent restaurant on its top floor.

Located across the street from the State Theater and Opera House, is the State Gallery, housing art from the 14th to the 21st centuries. The museum is connected to the New State Gallery, designed by British architect Sir James Stirling, and opened in 1984, where the museum’s collection of 20th and 21st century art is exhibited. The collection includes such artists as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Joseph Beuys and Francis Bacon.

The city’s most unexpected museum is the Pig Museum, located in a former slaughterhouse. Twenty-nine rooms on three floors exhibit 40,000 pigs – small pigs, big pigs, piglets, toy pigs, pigs dressed as glamor girls, gamblers, and cowboys, piggy banks and antique pigs. There is even a skeleton of a pig. Everything but the squeal. “Kitsch” doesn’t begin to describe these bizarre exhibits. The museum’s brochure quotes Sir Winston Churchill: “I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” And why not? There’s a family-style restaurant and a large beer garden with a menu of traditional dishes, including grilled pork, crisp pork knuckles, and, of course, sausages.

Stuttgart’s architecture is notable. A housing center with the theme “Form Without Ornament” was built on one of the hills surrounding the city center in 1927. This architectural project, called the Weissenhof Estate, of 33 houses, was designed by Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, among others. Each architect designed his own house, with each conforming to certain specifications. The Le Corbusier house, which was recently designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is now a museum. Half of the museum reflects the history of the estate, the other half is furnished and decorated as it was in 1927.

Castle Square (Schlossplatz) is the heart of the city, where some of the old buildings survived American and British bombers. The Opera House stands nearby, home of the famous Stuttgart ballet.

A wonderful art nouveau market hall, built between 1911 and 1914, destroyed during World War II, but rebuilt after the war, features foodstuff from all over the world. There are many open-air farmers’ markets, too. A culinary specialty of the region is the “maultasche,” a large ravioli-like pasta square filled with chopped meat, onions, spinach, breadcrumbs and herbs, and served in broth. It’s hearty and delicious, like the local sausages.

In the summer, Stuttgart hosts a wine festival and a music festival. Autumn brings the annual beer festival, a celebration that goes back some 200 years. In winter, there’s an enchanting Christmas market.

All Stuttgart’s inventions are not technological. A man named Alfred Ritter owned a chocolate factory here, and in 1932 his wife Clara suggested that the company make smaller, square chocolate bars that would fit into a jacket pocket. He took his wife’s suggestion and the Ritter Sport changed munching history.

Chocolate and pigs without the squeal. Stuttgart has it all.

If You Go:

Stuttgart Citytour buses (hop-on-hop-off) run every forty minutes and take 1 1/2 hours with nine stops. Tickets are available at the Tourist Information Center near the railroad station, or on the bus.

StuttCard offers free admission to all museum and reductions to theaters, shops and restaurants.

Train tickets can be purchased in advance from RailEurope (1-800-622-8600).

The post Stuttgart: Home of Automobiles and Piglets appeared first on Traveling Archive.