Day 51...Mercedes babay! - 16th August
Woke up and wolfed down a quick continental breakfast. Decided to stay another night as after seeing two museums, the day would be pretty much over anyway. Took a while trying to explain it in garbled German to our hotel lady. She was alarmed and thought we were trying to say there was something wrong with the room!
We then headed off to Mercedes Benz headquarters. It took us about an hour to park as the car park was full and we had to wait for people to leave. We were entertained by an angry German man who was chasing away any people who tried to push in from the other side of the road.
The line up took forever as well, with a 10minute delay once we got to the front of the building. It was an amazing building - only opened this year. It was designed based on the double helix and was super shiny and modern. Inside they had films projected on the walls and super futuristic pod lifts.
Nathan: "After purchasing tickets, we received our audio quite quickly and got in the lift. Each of the three lifts were working non-stop to move guests to the museum to the top for where the first section commenced. Basically you start at the top and meander down through 7 stories of the most amazing collection of cars and history to ever come together under one roof.
As we stepped out at the top floor from the lift, we found ourselves in an ice white room, much like that out of a Star Wars film. It was where those tall skinny aliens where building the stormtroopers clones, except this one was completely empty all except for a white stuffed horse - which came as a bit of a surpise! However, things became a little clearer after reading the plaque below which read "I do believe in the horse. The automobile is no more than a transitory phenomenon" Emperor Wilhelm II. And so the Mercedes Benz story began...
The top floor was a collection of Carl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybachs early gasoline engines, and motorised vehicles and carriages. The very first cars ever created. Each of the 7 levels were themed to showcase a separate and imporant component of the companies automobile history. These levels were linked by long circular ramps showcasing world history and the events which had an impact on automobile history, like the two world wars, and the depression etc.
The musuem would have to be one of the most 'all out', no expenses spared projected to be undertaken. There were no less than 5 modern day Formula 1 cars and countless older cars, some of the most iconic automobile sin hostory - from the classic to the gullwing Mercedes of the 60's. There is literally hundreds of millions invested here and is a must see for any car enthusiast, even if Mercedes isn't the top of your list. It will be interesting to see if BMW can come close when they open their new facility in 2007. " - End Nathan
Nikki again:
I didn't give a crap what year they invented the honeycomb water diverter 83 wedge thingybobby, but I loved their tour through history and the pictures and info. We ended up spending a good few hours there as we had decided to do Porsche tomorrow, as Mercedes was so big! So we drove back into town and worked on the internet. Since it was late afternoon, early evening and a nice balmy evening at that, we went looking for Hans-im-Gluck platz (square) which was a little square which had a statue of the fairy tale character 'Lucky Hans'. The square was as cute as a bug and had a few cafes and beergardens spilling onto the square. We stayed for a few drinks, watched the sky go dark and had a tasty dinner before heading home.
We had planned to have a lazy arvo with books and baths as we have been going non stop for weeks, but it was a no go! I had a bath anyway, stuffing the plug with plastic as there was no plug. Then squabbled with Nate over the only book left that we haven't read, then went to bed.
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