Mercedes and Porsche Museums in Stuttgart

The road from Munich to Stuttgart

Is it possible that some roads in Germany are better than well-known autobahns? Yes, it is. To check it, one has to simply drive along the portion, called a+, of the A8 autobahn between Munich and Augsburg. On this trip, we drove on the A8 to Stuttgart, where two outstanding automobile museums, Mercedes and Porsche, are located. We left Munich at 8 am and in 15 minutes saw the sign “Willkommen bei a+” (Welcome to a+). The highway to Augsburg, which is 70 km (43.5 mi) from Munich, is almost straight with virtually no exits. On such a road you can really enjoy the speed of over 200 km/h (124 mph) and, in fact, you do not even feel it much. We drove these 70 km in about 20 minutes. Fantastic! Then there were some segments of road construction on the autobahn, but we still made it to Stuttgart in less than 2 hours.

Mercedes-Benz Museum

The price of admission includes an audio guide available in several languages. Since we had also wanted to visit the Porsche museum, we planned to spend only 2 hours in the Mercedes museum. I must say that this was not enough. The exhibition is located on 7 floors and one needs at least 3 hours to see everything. The display of the exhibits is well thought through. First, one takes the elevator to the 7th floor, where the first bulky but already luxury cars are presented. The museum building is constructed as a huge spiral, so the visitors just walk down along this spiral. The lower the level, the newer are the exhibited car models. It is a rather easy walk and we did not feel tired. The museum fully met our expectations, no wonder it is considered one of the most interesting automobile museums in the world. We saw rare vintage automobiles, contemporary models and Formula 1 racing cars. You can sit in many of the exhibits, turn the steering wheel or drive on a simulator. BTW, it is not a museum just for men, many women were equally exited at the exhibition. We had lunch in the restaurant on the lower level; it serves traditional German food such as schnitzel and French fries. Nothing special, but still delicious and we liked it.

Porsche Museum

The distance between the two museums is 10 km (6 mi), but it is on the other side of the city. We got there in 15 minutes. First, we were very impressed with the museum building, it is ultra-modern and at the same time beautiful. There are fewer exhibits than in the Mercedes-Benz museum; however, what the exhibits! The entire range of Porsches is presented, from the first pre-war model to the newest Porsche Carrera with a 600 hp engine. Audio guides are also available in different languages. It took us about 2 hours to see all the displays. Then we went the bar on the first floor to relax a little before the return trip. On the second floor of the museum, there is a high-end gourmet restaurant, Christophorus. The “Porsche brand name” dishes there cost about double usual restaurant prices. Anyway, Christophorus was closed for a midday break (from 2:30 to 5:30 pm). We realized that we had done the right thing lunching at the Mercedes museum. So, the advice for foodies is to start from the Porsche museum and have lunch there, or stay for dinner at Christophorus and then return to Munich late at night.