Nevertheless, that doesn't mean I haven't been taking photos...
The conference is being held in the oldest part of the university, which everyone calls "the castle". This is what it looks like:
It's basically a stately home. It's very nice inside, too:
The castle has been extended for quite some way, but in a manner that tries to be faithful to the core architecture:
Here's an old tractor:
The wheel on the side is used as a drive belt for powering remote machinery, for example this baling machine:
The university has a botanical garden that's quite pretty, with ornamental ponds and such, but it's mainky trees. Some of these are so interestingly-shaped that I can't help but suspect someone's been experimenting on them:
There are several monuments and ornaments dotted around, too. This is made out of a piece of tree:
This one is dedicated to Catherina Pawlowna, queen of Württemburg who died in 1819:
The inscription isn't very clear there, so here's an enhanced version:
I like the wat that the umlaut is an E that has been added to the vowel; it looks rather cute. However, on the lower part of the monument we see:
Conclusion: the original monument was too short so they made a plinth for it later, by which time German language use was becoming more standardised.
This is some kind of war memorial:
Just because the castle has been tastefully extended, some parts of the university were built in the 1970s; for them, the word "tasteful" cannot be applied:
I could easily have passed that off as a photo of Essex University.
Here are a couple of advertising posters for shows:
I suspect German humour may be involved there somewhere.
Cornfield!
There's another field somewhere with cows that have windows built into their sides so you can see the contents of their stomachs, but I didn't come across that one.
I think this is a statue of an artichoke:
This is the closest I've been to Stuttgart proper:
It's taken from 147 metres up the television tower, where we went last night:
Here's the shadow the tower casts in the evening:
If they'd been a bit more enterprising, they could have made a sundial out of it.
The view at night is good, with the city illuminated and the forest all dark:
Ah, it seems to have stopped raining! I can finish up and wander off to the conference now.