The first day we walked around town and explored Schloss Wolfsburg and the surrounding grounds. The castle had great gardens and plenty of places to sit and relax. Plus they let Bonnie and me in for free!! We could go up into the towers which offered great views. You can see the Autostadt and VW factory in this one. One of the funny things about the castle was that the only place to see the original brick and plaster of the walls is in the bathrooms. In Bonnie's bathroom there was an old portal still exposed. Very strange.

We had plans for day two that included touring the VW factory, visiting the Autostadt, and seeing the old VW museum. We never made it out of the Autostadt. We spent 7 1/2 hours there and still didn't see it all. The Autostadt is like a science museum for car lovers. It's filled with interactive games, models, and displays. Each automaker that is owned by Volkswagen AG (Bentley, Lamborghini, Skoda, Audi, Volkswagen, Seat, and Volkswagen Works) has a building at the Autostadt in which to display their cars, designs, and philosophies. Here's me in front of the Lamborghini building.

When you enter the main building of the Autostadt, there's a 4 ton model of the earth that is 1:1,000,000 in scale and the floor is clear. Under the floor are smaller globes that each has a different strange statistic. Some showed pockets of oil in the earth, some were population size but all of them were different. In this picture the camera is looking through the floor at the small globes and the reflection of the big globe can be seen on the floor. There was also a kiosk that talked about SunFuel and how biomass can be used to produce cleaner fuel. The spin that VW put on it is that you can plant your own SunFuel plant which you can then watch grow on the internet. Also you can pick up your plant within a year if you want it. So to check out our plants go to www.autostadt.de and follow the links (English version) to the SunFuel Lab. To see my plant enter for a login name: Alistair-Hcf732. To see Bonnie's enter: Bonnie-Jcg672. It is case sensitive so remember to capitalize when needed.

Also, there was an obstacle course for the VW Toureg and a training area to learn about hydroplaning a VW Golf (or Polo in Europe). Here you see the driver hit the cone. Tsk-tsk! I did get some videos. There is no sound but you'll get the idea. Also, you might want to download these first and then watch them with your own viewer. I'm not sure if Cox.net is going to let me use the bandwidth required to watch these so in hopes of keeping my site from crashing please try to download first. Here is the Polo hydroplaning. And a Toureg on a see-saw (which is hard to see but it starts with the car about to tip the see-saw).

One last building I should mention is where people go to pick-up their new VW. We were allowed into part of the building where you can look out to where customers are getting to see their new VW for the first time. But what caught our eyes were the two tall storage towers. When new VWs roll off the assembly line they're placed in one of these two towers until you're ready to pick your car up. Here's a close-up.

There was so much to see at the Autostadt that it's easier for me to just list the next few pictures:

This is a bus from the very first production year. It served as delivery van of a Lemonade drink company. Front Middle Back