My boyfriend is traveling for work to Filderstadt, about 30 min outside of Stuttgart, Germany. I will be joining him for part of the trip and we'll have 3-4 days to take in as much of Europe as possible. I was hoping for some recommendations for a few different day trips that we could go on (since the hotel in Filderstadt is already paid for via his company). Also, the preferred mode of transportation would be train. Neither of us has been to Europe before and would love some help on planning this once in a lifetime experience! Thanks so much in advance for any information you can provide :)
Esslingen and Tübingen are both wonderful towns to visit. Easy to get to by train too.
Highly recommend a walking tour with Stuttgart Steps to make the most out of your time there.
http://stuttgartsteps.com/
As you said, you are a 30 minute Sbahn ride from Stuttgart HBF ( main train station), which gives you good access to a wide range of places to visit. Esslingen am Neckar and Tübingen are a couple nice possibilities in the area, to minimize your travel time. Die Bahn website will give you the particulars.
In 2002 we flew out of Stuttgart to Atlanta and spent our last night in Herrenberg. We picked Herrenberg because we wanted to be close to STR in the morning - a little over a half hour by S-Bahn - but didn't want to stay in a large city. However, I was delighted by the town and all of it's fachwerk buildings, particularly around the town square. The castle that used to guard the city from the hill is now just a pile of rocks, but the wall is partially intact.
On the way to Herrenberg, we stopped and had a delightful lunch on the bank of the Neckar in Tübingen.