Every design for Stuttgart

Ever wondered why Stuttgart calls itself the cradle of the automobile? Swabia's great city has built and celebrated cars for so long that the Mercedes-Benz Museum and the Porsche Museum feel like local institutions rather than tourist sights. Yet the name is far older than any engine: it was first recorded in the twelfth century as Stuokarten, a garden for breeding mares.

What makes Stuttgart unusual is its setting. The centre lies in a basin, the Stuttgarter Kessel, with hills on every side and vineyards climbing some of them, so that wine is grown within sight of office blocks. The Landesmuseum Württemberg and the Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg tell the region's story, and the Mahnmal Birkenkopf gives the city a place of remembrance.

High over it all stands the Fernsehturm Stuttgart, a slender tower that anyone who grew up here has seen from almost every street. Wear the city, and that tower comes with you.