On the road (1) – Six countries, nine days COMPLETED About This Page:

[lazanya]

Great pics from the museum!

[cindybelle]

Originally Posted by chezp

Hmmm.... sad story about foot-high chocolate rabbit. I didn't take any photos of him (me bad) and we went out yesterday with my parents. Mark had insisted that I didn't eat him before my parents came, so that my mom could see him, which she did yesterday. I managed to leave him in direct sunlight (stupid me ) and now he has a two inch hole in his rear, where it was burnt out by the sun.

Now he is recovering in the fridge....

Cheryl, if you could devise a way for me to eat all the chocolates I want and then stand in the sun to burn an inch or two off my rear, I would SO sign up for that diet/exercise plan. If anyone can do it, you can!

Am loving this TR and I'll say it again: you take the BEST pics!
.

[Principessa_di_Fata]

That's a REALLY cool museum!!! Now that I know it's all ramps, I'll bring Meri in the stroller, and hand her my iPod for an hour or so, so I can see the museum! About how long did it take you to go through it?

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Principessa_di_Fata

That's a REALLY cool museum!!! Now that I know it's all ramps, I'll bring Meri in the stroller, and hand her my iPod for an hour or so, so I can see the museum! About how long did it take you to go through it?

It probably took us about an hour and a half. I know we entered not long after it opened at 10.00 and I'm thinking we went for lunch about 11.40.

[chezp]

Friday 26 March – part two: some seriously stylish cars!

Once the first vehicles were available, you then travelled into the next section, which showed you what happened in the years 1900 – 1914. In each of these sections, there was a central section with cars from each period, with staff carefully watching over you. Woe betide you if you got too close to them! I saw a couple of people get told off and told to back off, when they stepped too near them and I can understand it, as these must be worth a fortune! Then, as you walked down the ramp towards them, there were boards the whole way down, explaining the developments in both the company and the world at the time.



When we first arrived, we’d seen a number of school trips were there, including one that was American (perhaps children of the armed forces serving over there?) and also one from the north of England. We did wonder what educational value this place would have for them, but there was certainly a lot for them to learn about the history of the 20th century. A few of the kids did seem to take it seriously, but unfortunately, the majority didn’t and were just interested in the cars. Understandable enough, but a great shame, as there was a lot they could get out of it.

After seeing the initial cars from the early part of the 20th century, there was a gallery off to each side, focusing on special subjects. The first was the gallery of voyagers, vehicles that help to get you around.



From there, we got some cool views over the surrounding area, although the design on the window wasn’t conducive to getting photos.



We did stop a real-life test track outside and I tried to get some photos of it, but it didn’t come out great. Trust me, it was a test track and we saw a number of cars out on it.



The next section took us through the inter-war period and this was, by far, my favourite section, as I just love the style of cars from the 1930s. As I said to Mark, they were stylish and I could just imagine going out in one of these cars, with hair flowing behind you in the breeze, feeling like Royalty. Ok, enough dreaming...



There was one in particular that I was really taken with:



The neighbouring gallery here focused on the gallery of carriers, looking at how Mercedes-Benz has helped people to do their jobs.



From here, the cars, to my mind deteriorated, as they took you through the 1960s, which, for me, was not the greatest design period for them. See what you think from the photos:



The gallery here focused on the gallery of helpers, looking at vehicles in use for the emergency services. I thought this one was very well laid out.



Then we came more up to date, looking at cars from the 1970s onwards. I found this section perhaps the most interesting, as far as the history went anyway. There were quite a few things from the 1970s that I hadn’t realised, as I was far too young at the time to remember anything about them. Of course, I knew about the oil crisis, but I didn’t realise that Germans had to have five car free Sundays where no-one drove to deal with it. The photos of empty roads brought it home to me how bad things really got back then.




Next: do I know you from a Bond movie?

[Colexis Mom]

More great pictures!!

[Principessa_di_Fata]

Wow very cool museum!!! The cars are just so cool looking, I agree!

[claytrgtshooter]

Great pictures from the museum.

[Kenny]

I think I thought we were done with the museum... silly me! I'm glad we weren't! Great pictures of the cars and tru... lorries!

[KMB733]

More great pictures!! This museum is really cool!

[disney_duke]

Awesome musueum so far! I especially enjoyed the glass-enclosed cars in the parking structure!! I bet the Test Track was cool to see too.

[lazanya]

More great pictures!

[luvnwdwgal]

Loved the museum! Very interesting!

[chezp]

Friday 26 March – part three: do I know you from a Bond movie?

The gallery here focused on cars that belonged to celebrities. Although some of them were German celebrities that didn’t mean much to me, I was fascinated by the car owned by the Princess of Wales, as I remember the controversy at the time of her buying a non-British car. It did not go down well. :



Other great vehicles included the Pope-mobile, the vehicles from the Lost World, the sequel to Jurassic Park and the one owned by Emperor Hirohito in Japan.



While in this section, I was finally able to get a photo, very sneakily, of one of the people touring the museum at the same time as us. Both of us commented the first time we saw him that he looked just like Oddjob, one of the villains in one of the Bond movies – don’t ask me which one, I only remember it was a Sean Connery one. He was the one who killed people with his flying bowler hat and we both said that we half expected him to pull out a bowler hat any second!



Having come right up to date with ordinary cars, the last section looked at the history of the company in racing and, of course for us, we were particularly interested in the Formula One cars and the one that Lewis Hamilton used to win the Formula One season a couple of years ago.



The amount of trophies they’d won was phenomenal and the gear that the drivers have worn over the years was also fascinating.



It was, at this point, that we had to hand our audio guides back and, as we did, we were told that we could keep the lanyards we’d had on as a souvenir. Neat!

Even once we exited the museum officially, there were still plenty of displays around the cafe area.



We headed back downstairs and browsed the shop, but didn’t find anything we wanted there. Anything we did like the look of was very expensive, shall we say...

I suggested getting something to eat at the restaurant and we managed to find ourselves a nice lunch. We started off with butter Brotchen, which was essentially a pretzel with butter in it. We enjoyed it so much that we forgot to photograph it and only remembered once it was finished:

I had a cheese roll and Mark had a turkey one, which was full of surprises – look at what was in it:



As if he hadn’t had enough fruit, he then had some more and I had this fruit and yoghurt mix, which was very filling. It turned out to be a good call to eat here. Sure, it was pricey, but everything we had came to €19.60 ($26.50), which was probably less than we’d have paid at home for something similar at a museum.



It was a pretty nice place to eat:



I stopped to use the restrooms on the way out and, as you can see, even these have a Mercedes-Benz theme!



Next: where did that wind come from?

[Colexis Mom]

What a great museum that was Cheryl! Great pictures!