Stuttgart

Schlossplatz, the car museums and the Weissenhof Estate in two days

Two days in Stuttgart are enough for the centre and the car museums. Day one covers the Schlossplatz, the Altes Schloss, the Markthalle, the Staatsgalerie and the Kunstmuseum; day two the Mercedes-Benz Museum or Porsche in Zuffenhausen, Wilhelma, the Weissenhof Estate and sunset at the TV tower via the Zacke rack railway.

Day one, morning. Start on the Schlossplatz, where the Neues Schloss faces a lawn usually dotted with students. Cross to the Altes Schloss, a Renaissance courtyard castle that now holds the Landesmuseum Württemberg, then walk past the twin towers of the Stiftskirche to the Markthalle for coffee and a Butterbrezel.

Afternoon. Follow Konrad-Adenauer-Straße to the Staatsgalerie, whose Stirling wing with its pink and green handrails is worth seeing even if you skip the old masters. Finish at the Kunstmuseum, the glass cube on the Schlossplatz, and take the lift to its roof café.

Evening. Eat in the Bohnenviertel, then walk to Theodor-Heuss-Straße if you want bars that stay open late.

Day two, morning. Take the S1 to Neckarpark and give the Mercedes-Benz Museum at least three hours; the circuit opens with the first motor cars of Benz and Daimler and ends with racing cars on a banked curve.

Afternoon. Ride the U14 to Wilhelma, the zoo and botanical garden laid out in Moorish style for King Wilhelm I. Porsche fans should swap this for the S6 to Zuffenhausen. Later, catch a bus or tram up to the Killesberg for the Weissenhof Estate and the Weissenhofmuseum inside Le Corbusier's double house.

Evening. Ride the Zacke up to Degerloch and walk through the woods to the TV tower for sunset over the basin.

Two of the Weissenhof houses, built by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for the 1927 Werkbund exhibition, have been part of UNESCO's Architectural Work of Le Corbusier listing since 2016. One of them holds the Weissenhofmuseum, where you can walk through the rooms, while the rest of the estate is still lived in, so view the other houses from the street.

Maultaschen, Käsespätzle and Trollinger in the Besen taverns

Stuttgart's food is Swabian: Maultaschen pasta pockets, Käsespätzle, lentils with Spätzle and sausages, and Zwiebelrostbraten under fried onions. The city also grows its own wine, mostly red Trollinger and Lemberger, which growers in Uhlbach, Obertürkheim and Rotenberg pour in seasonal Besen taverns marked by a broom over the door.

Swabian food is filling and thrifty, and Stuttgart cooks it well. Maultaschen are large pasta pockets stuffed with minced meat, spinach and bread, served in broth or sliced and fried with onions and egg. Locals call them Herrgottsbscheißerle, roughly 'little God-cheaters', after the story that monks hid meat inside the dough during Lent. Käsespätzle bring soft egg noodles layered with mountain cheese and crisp onions, while Linsen mit Spätzle und Saitenwürstle pairs lentils with the same noodles and a pair of thin sausages. On a menu, Zwiebelrostbraten is the dish for a big appetite: roast beef under a heap of fried onions. Swabian potato salad is dressed with broth, without mayonnaise, and served barely warm.

The traditional Weinstuben of the old town, with wood panelling and shared tables, are the place for all of this. For a snack, the Markthalle has stalls for cheese, sausage and bread, and every bakery sells the Butterbrezel, a split pretzel spread thick with butter.

Wine is the other half of the story. Stuttgart is one of the few German cities with commercial vineyards inside its limits, mostly red Trollinger and Lemberger. From autumn into spring, growers in Uhlbach, Obertürkheim and Rotenberg open a Besen, a temporary tavern in a barn or living room, flagged by a broom hung over the door. Expect plain food, wine by the quarter litre and a seat beside strangers.

From the Frühlingsfest to the Cannstatter Volksfest on the Wasen

Stuttgart has mild winters, with January highs of about 5C, and warm summers peaking near 25C. The festival year opens with the Frühlingsfest on the Cannstatter Wasen in late April, continues with the Weindorf in late August and peaks with the three-week Cannstatter Volksfest from late September, followed by the Christmas market.

Winters in the basin are short on sun but not truly harsh: January averages a high of 5C and a low just under freezing, with about 40 mm of rain or snow. Spring warms quickly, from 11C in March to 20C in May, and May is when the rainfall jumps to about 76 mm, a level that holds through August, mostly as afternoon storms. July and August peak at about 25C.

The calendar runs on festivals. The Frühlingsfest opens the year on the Cannstatter Wasen from about late April, a beer-tent fair that locals treat as the warm-up for autumn. Late August brings the Stuttgarter Weindorf, when wine growers set up wooden arbours around the Marktplatz and Schillerplatz for about two weeks and pour regional wine with Swabian dishes into the night.

The big one is the Cannstatter Volksfest, which starts in late September and lasts about three weeks. It began in 1818 as a harvest festival under King Wilhelm I, and the tall Fruchtsäule, a column topped with fruit, still marks the fairground. Dirndl and Lederhosen are common, and tent tables are booked months ahead for weekends.

From late November until 23 December the Weihnachtsmarkt fills the squares between the Altes Schloss and the Marktplatz, with stall roofs dressed in elaborate figures and scenes by their owners. Go on a weekday afternoon to avoid the evening crush.