Our current apartment; and a simple salad

Stuttgart as seen from the Weissenburg Park

Stuttgart is a city of hills and stairs.

I can not believe that of all towns in Germany, we landed in the (seemingly) hilliest one! I lived in Düsseldorf – flat, Munich – flat, have been to Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Dresden – all flat, flat, flat. And now Stuttgart! T. is cursing every time he goes running, trying to fill his stint of kilometers for the marathon he is training for, down one hill and up the next, no 10 meters where it is flat.

And me, I have to schlep groceries up endless staircases: the people of Stuttgart don’t believe in nicely sloping streets, nor elevators. About half of the 1 km distance from the tram stop to our current apartment is stairs

stairs – part of our street

the other half steeply sloping streets

our street

and then you finally arrive at the gates and there are more stairs awaiting you:

the stairs in our garden

And our new, permanent apartment from September on is on the 5th floor. No elevators of course.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of our current apartment:

the terrace

the living room

the bath

the kitchen

Yes, very stylish and very impractical. Ever tried drinking red wine on a white sofa? The bunch of branches in the bath looks very nice but we would have preferred some storage space. And if you think I am gonna cook anything in that kitchen, you are wrong. Salads and some pastasciutta is the most I am whipping up there – there is only one, I repeat, one, pot in that kitchen!

One of the salads I prepared in this kitchen up to now is a simple salad of mixed greens, some sauteed vegetables and smoked trout.

salad with smoked trout

With this salad we drank a young local riesling, 2005 Stettener Häder Riesling Gipskeuper from the Weingut Beurer which goes very well with smoked fish because of its acidity, partly due to the selenite-rich soil the vines grow on.

riesling from Beurer

The salad preparation was a real tightrope act, whatwith the small workspace, one pot, no salad bowl etc. in this kitchen. But I guess I am getting the hang of it (after all, my kitchen in Munich is not a lot bigger than this – but definitely better equipped!) and might soon try actually cooking some pasta!