Landschaftspark Travertinpark

Landschaftspark Travertinpark lies in Stuttgart’s Bad Cannstatt district, between Altenburger Steige and the Stuttgart-Münster power plant. It crosses the vineyards of Cannstatter Halde and follows former quarry grounds through a protected biotope. Seven information boards explain how Cannstatt travertine formed, was extracted and shaped for construction.

The gravel bed of the Münster–Cannstatt industrial railway runs through the park, with a preserved switch and level crossing. Württemberg’s first electrically operated industrial railway left these details behind. Three quarries once supplied travertine from the Lauster, Schauffele and Haas sites, while the Haas quarry now forms part of the path system. Restored crane tracks and machinery preserve the Schauffele site, although the former Lauster grounds remain inaccessible.

Forest rhinoceroses, forest elephants, pond turtles and flint tools have emerged from the rock, with some finds shown at Stuttgart’s State Museum of Natural History. Fourteen travertine columns, each fifteen metres high, stand beside the power plant outside the park. Berlin ordered them from the Lauster quarry in 1936 for a planned monument to Mussolini, but nobody collected them.