Since Mike had decided to pre-celebrate his birthday in a snow hole, we had to ensure that he spend some time with me and Lucy. So we post-celebrated his birthday with a trip to Stuttgart to visit the world's biggest pig museum. Lucy has a penchant for fast trains, so we booked seats on the ICE train.
Just as on the train to Innsbruck we were asked by one woman to shut up! It's not fair. There's always someone around to give you the feeling that you should be existing in silence.
We first went to the main art museum in the centre of Stuttgart to see the large collection of Otto Dix paintings that they have. Afterwards, we had lunch and then a constitutional through the Schlosspark - and green area adjacent to Stuttgart's main railway station. A demonstration was in progress as we walked through. The city of Stuttgart had passed plans to move the station underground, but this would mean digging up the Schlosspark and removing trees and public outcry ensued. A large public movement is behind keeping things as they are, and for a while now they having been holding peaceful demos in the centre every weekend, involving the groups against Stuttgart21 - the construction of the underground station.
The pig museum has a humungous array of piggy paraphernalia, ornaments, models, information and artwork. It's very impressive and was worth the trip. You need a few hours to see everything, and it's obvious that the exhibits had been lovingly arranged and displayed with so much variety.
After (literally) lounging around for an hour or so in our favourite bookshop we returned to the station and a peaceful journey back to Munich.
