In comparison to New York and Sydney Stuttgart looks small and
unimportant, it’s not even the biggest city in Germany. However we have a
fairly high amount of traveling Traceurs stopping by and they all seem to
enjoy their stay. So if you also think about going to Stuttgart / Germany here
some advices which might could be useful…
1. How to get into contact with locals?
That’s easy. Directly located in Stuttgart you will find the “Parkour
Stuttgart”-community, Traceurs of all gender, age and experience.
Simply check their website and tell them in the forum that you are on your way
to Stuttgart.
http://forum.parkour-stuttgart.de/
Besides PKS we have members of Ashigaru – Germany’s greatest Parkour & Freerunning team – living close to Stuttgart. So
if you are more into Freerunning you definitely should check their website!
And if you are a girl and overwhelmed by Stuttgart’s male dominance simply go to
“FREEQUENCE” on Facebook. Three girls recently have founded this
group to represent Traceuses in their area. Contact them, they will be happy to
help you out!
http://de-de.facebook.com/pages/FREEQUENCE/156921511067647?sk=info
And there even is one more possibility: There’s a regularly hold workshop at the
University of Vaihingen. On every FIRST Saturday each month people meet there
to train.
2. Where to stay in Stuttgart?
That’s just as easy as getting into contact with PKS (Parkour Stuttgart) - and it’s even for free! A
couple of years ago a new idea was created: Parkour Exchange. Basically it’s the
same as couchsurfing, but for Traceurs. In Parkour Exchange Traceurs from all
places offer a free bed / couch / a piece of their floor in order to make
travelling easier for every Traceur and exchanging experiences and knowledge.
So check the website and look for a place that suits you!
http://www.parkourexchange.org/
3. Where to train in Stuttgart?
As mentioned before the PKS-workshops are hold at the University of Vaihingen – a
suburb of Stuttgart, only a few minutes away from central station if you
catch the tube S1 (direction Herrenberg) / S2 (Filderstadt) / S3 (Flughafen).
I really recommend you to go there. It’s a great area with a large varity of
spots for beginneres just as for more experienced Traceurs. You simply got
everything there: each type of spot, rooftops, bars, playgrounds, meadows to
flip / relax on.
If you don’t want to spend money on trains etc. though, stay in the the city
center. We sadly don’t have a massive spot where you can do everything at the
same place, but we have everywhere a bit to do – which means you can combine
training with sight seeing.
I will mention just a few of them…
- “Unipark” (university park)
Errected right next to the park of Stuttgart’s university is a pretty big fountain,
which kinda is never filled with water. Which makes it the perfect place to train at! You can combine the fountain with the
surrounding flowerbeds and stairs – so it becomes a paradise if you like
precision jumps, strites etc.
PS: If you accidentely get with one foot into the flowers, you’ll have to do 10
pushups, if you land with both feet in them – 20! So mind your step 
– “Kleiner Schlossplatz” (small palace square)
When we talk about this spot we don’t talk
directly about the place in front of Stuttgart’s castle. But a little further
behind there’s a museum and right behind this glass cube is our spot:
A ramp, with bar holds on each side, opposed to it a wall – perfect for runs,
wallruns, armjumps – a place where you can progress perfectly, a place made for
Traceurs!
– “LBS” (financial district)
We all have these subways where you can do
cat-to-arm jumps or cat-precisions. But besides this you got tic tacs,
(bar-)precisions, and the new part of the LBS-entry: staircases with bars of
different high. Nice place for creative people to flow around a bit.
Here a video of the Ashigaru-FREEQUENCE-PKS-community filmed in Stuttgart:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmBsVt8Oxhk&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLBC027F828A90A599
4. What to do besides training
Stuttgart is a place like anywhere: You have pubs and cinemas. You can go shopping in the
Königsstrasse, clubbing all along the Theodor-Heuss-Strasse, go indoor rock
climbing at Cityrocks or see a musical in one of Stuttgart’s two theaters. We may
don’t have an Opera House or a Statue of Liberty BUT there are a couple of
locations we are proud of…
- places you have to go to
If you interested to get some cultural education you could visit the Castle, the
Fernsehturm (one of the oldest television towers in the world!) or some of the
finest oldest cars in the Mercedes Benz museum or Porsche Museum.
- places you have to eat at
If you are tired of Mc Donalds and Burger King – go to Udo’s Snack! It’s a small
bar, where you can get big burgers! Good ones, hand made, with fresh
ingredients and a lot of meat! Or if you are really hungry but you don’t feel
like paying much for your meal go to Onkel Ottos – a restaurant where you get
the biggest Schnitzel for a really good price. Furthermore there’s one more nice
place to go to when you feel hungry / thirsty: Sky beach. In the city centre on
top of a 6 story high building you can find the bar. You have a fantastic view on
Stuttgart city, but what makes it that special is the fact that the whole area
is filled with sand and you can sit on comfy sand sacks or lie on huge canopy
beds while slurping tasty cocktails.
And last but not least some final words:
When we asked Andrew, a Traceur from Australia, what he liked about Stuttgart, he replied:
“I was in Stuttgart for only a short time and would have liked to have spent more
time there, but had to keep going with my travels. I really liked Stuttgart, it
is so different to Brisbane in regards to training, it had a lot of different
spaces to train in. Stuttgart has a small, tight-knit group of dedicated
traceurs, who are awesome by the way! Not only did we all train together, but
hung out pretty much all the time and just had fun. I will definitely go
back!”
I guess that’s exactly what makes Stuttgart special: the fact that it is NOT a
big city. Neither is Stuttgart flooded by crowds of freshly arrived Traceurs
each day (which sometimes means that locals don’t want to spend all their time
with “foreigners”, thus train alone), nor do we have a community with
hundreds of people, where people don’t know each other anymore (…).
The core of Parkour Stuttgart, FREEQUENCE, Ashigaru and the other Traceurs living here, know
each other very well. We are friends – training together, having fun together
and sharing the same passion for one thing: Parkour.
And everyone is welcome to join us!
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