I’m mainly skipping past Tuesday which was our travel day from Munich, which involved a long train trip. We did enjoy an excellent dinner at the Cube restaurant in the evening. This restaurant is on the top floor of the Kundtmuseum, with fabulous views and modern food.

Our visit to Stuttgart was all about the cars. We had booked a tour of the AMG engine factory in Affelbach. This was about an hour from Stuttgart by train and bus,The AMG engines are all built by a single technician who takes on average about three and a half per engine. There is still a production line but one technician is doing the work at every station. We also saw their second production line that has automatic picking and each engine is on a cart that moves through the production with most of the tools the technician will need on the cart. It is a much cleaner, more organised looking line but not as flexible as the other line. We also saw the HWA workshop which hand builds Mercedes AMG GT cars. Don’t ask me any technical questions, these factory tours were mainly for E’s interest, but I still found it all very interesting. No photos of the actual production but we could take some around the grounds.

Afterwards we went back to our apartment for a break before going out to the Mercedes museum, I’d booked dinner out that way so the plan was to stay until closing and then head over to dinner. The museum traces the development of the motor car alongside major historical events happening at the same time. It’s built on a giant spiral and you start at the top with the earliest models of cars and work your way down. Tip: catch the train, you get €5 off your entrance to the museum if you can show your train ticket. We had a group ticket which covered travel for all three of us for the whole day so it was very economical.

For dinner I tried some local Swabian specialties, including maultaschen (veal and spinach filled dumplings) and roast beef with onion gravy a spätzle (noodles). I also tried a local red wine. The food was all good simply cooked food which definitely hit the spot.