Stuttgart

There was still snow on the ground during our drive from Trier. Fortunately it hadn’t snowed in a while and the roads were clear as my rental doesn’t have snow tires and Snow tires are required for all cars in Germany.  I picked a hotel in the middle of downtown in their pedestrian walking area. It made parking a challenge but it was better for exploring the Christmas market. However the citizens of Stuttgart stay up late and the area in front of our hotel was noisy till 1am! Since we were hungry we headed over and ate our way through the market. We had the half meter long bratwurst, spatzle with cheese, pork steak sandwich, cherry filled bun with vanilla sauce,

The next day we visited Lena, Marcel and their brand new baby. It was nice to catch up with them, we saw them during our last visit to Stuttgart. Afterwards we went back to the Stuttgart market as there was another huge section of vendors we missed. I think the family was tired eating sausages so we had dinner at a local swabian restaurant where the boys tried new things like venison goulash, goose, and the other local specialties like the Maultaschen, which is similar to a huge meat filled ravioli. We also bought #2 his first beer, I guess we will need to come back in two years when #4 is of age to keep up with the tradition.