I'll admit it: in summer, Stuttgart is pretty. In winter, it is seductive. As soon as darkness falls early, the valley settles around the city like a warm hand, and the lights on the hillsides look as if someone switched them on just for a quiet evening.
The Christmas market is of course the classic. From the end of November, the stalls stretch from the Marktplatz along Kirchstraße and Schillerplatz down to the Schlossplatz. Even if you don't know that this market is well over 300 years old, you can feel it. My advice: a Tuesday evening rather than a Saturday. Then you can stop and linger without being pushed along.
But you only truly arrive in Stuttgart at the edges of the bustle. At a quarter past one, the organ plays for half an hour in the Stiftskirche, on Sundays in the Schlosskirche. Once you have sat there, you hear the market differently. On the Schlossplatz the Ferris wheel often keeps turning into January, and the Wintertraum has a roller rink instead of an ice rink, which I still find charmingly odd.
And then there are the quiet hours. The vineyards at Rotenberg are almost deserted in winter, the Schlossgarten lies under hoarfrost, and the Wilhelma shows its romantic side. From the TV tower, the whole valley looks like scattered gold.
If you prefer something a little more enchanted, it is only a short ride to Esslingen . Every year, the old town around the Old Town Hall turns into a medieval and Christmas market, with torches, jugglers and fire artists in the evening. Between half-timbered houses and cobblestones, Stuttgart suddenly feels very far away.
Gentlemen who know Stuttgart only from business trips often ask me in winter what to do with an evening when they don't want to plan anything. My answer is always the same: less, but with time. A winter evening can't be ticked off a list. It wants to be slow.
I'm looking forward to the first lights. And to your stories once you have walked through the city.
Discreetly yours, Lena