Stuttgart

Set in a valley of vineyards and beautiful scenery, life in Stuttgart is sweet, just like the famous Necker region wines.

Swabian traditions and modern life coexist in apparent harmony and Stuttgart's strong sense of good living - witness pretty beer gardens and pristine urban parks - is tempered by a deep respect for the arts and the environment.

The double square - the Schlosplatz and the Schillerplatz - is a quick lesson in German architecture through the ages... Each building represents an era, from the Baroque Neues Schloss palace, to the Art Nouveau Kunstverein, to the 50s Dresdner bank.

Summer evenings are a spectacle, with the city parading in front of this gracious architectural backdrop, on their way to one of many open-air concerts taking place nearby.

The principal architectural highlight of Stuttgart is the Staatsgalerie. To reflect its renowned medieval and modern collection of art, the museum has been constructed out of tastefully graduated stone and lurid angular surfaces. The building snakes around you, inviting admiration and enmity in equal measure.

Just as popular with visitors are the Mercedes Benz and Porsche museums. You can take a guided tour of the production plants, or just admire the rarest prototypes, whose magnificence can awe the most disinterested bystander.

Stuttgart makes an excellent base for exploring one of Germany's most fecund and rewarding regions and is also a gateway to the Black Forest.

Wine lovers should coincide a visit with the gigantic wine festival at the end of August, when regional specialities like Maultaschen - meat and spinach pasties - are washed down with a glass of local Schillerwein.

A month later, the city is rocked again by the Cannstatter Volksfest - an equal to the Munich beer festival - where you can enjoy raucous song, dance and more than a little of the brown stuff.