Seeking Itinerary Advice for May trip Stuttgart – Northern Black Forest – Zurich – Salzburg – Wels?

FRA > Stuttgart: IMO, with your set of interests, you'd be remiss if you failed to stop for a day or two in Speyer:

https://speyer.technik-museum.de/en/
https://www.speyer.de/en/tourism/experience-speyer/tourist-attractions/
https://www.speyer.de/en/tourism/experience-speyer/museums/

What time of year will you be traveling?

Seems like an awful lot of places and travel distance to fit in 8-12 days. And all the side trips will each likely take up a day.

Both are nice, but sorry, I don't see the Black Forest on either.

If you want to do the Black Forest, then Triberg should be included.
Lived in Augsburg for four years, loved that city.

Hello Russ - Speyer does look good, especially the Technik Museum. I will see how that could fit in. Thank you!

Hi Stan - I agree that it seems a lot to fit in - too much travel and not enough sightseeing. That is why I am leaning toward Option 1 and saving Salzburg and Wels for another time. Thank you.

You don't say your home city, but if it has nonstops to Munich and Frankfurt, it is also likely to have direct flights to/from Zurich as well. So since you want to spend a few days in the Zurich area, why not plan to fly home from Zurich?

Hi geovagriffith - Wildberg describes itself as being in the "Nordschwarzwald" on their town website. The scenery doesn't look to be as stunning as the Black Forest in the south, but we want to 'walk in the steps of our ancestors' so to speak and they were all clustered in the northern Black Forest. The photos of Triberg waterfalls online are indeed beautiful. I have added Augsburg to MyGoogleMap and now see that perhaps it would be more efficient to fly to Zurich for my cousin visit, then travel north to Stuttgart as a base for day trips, then head through Ulm and Augsburg for departure from Munich. Thank you for your advice!

Hi Sam - we are coming from Denver and, while we don't have a non-stop to Zurich, there is a Lufthansa flight to Zurich with a connection through Frankfurt that isn't too bad. Good suggestion to consider flying out of Zurich. Perhaps into Munich and out of Zurich or vice versa. Thank you!

I will make some itin. suggestions for PARTS of your trip.

• SE of Stuttgart: Hire local guide (preferably someone who is versed in local history) for a day to drive us to several small family home towns (e.g. Wildberg, Haiterbach, Zavelstein, Effringen, Herrenberg, etc.).

The towns on your list lie to the SOUTHWEST of Stuttgart. I cannot guess at whether you will be able to find the sort of personal guide you are looking for. If you cannot... I would look into CALW, one of the Black Forests more attractive towns, as a base for independent travel. Travel to Calw from Stuttgart by local train or train+bus takes about 1.5 hrs.

Calw > Herrenberg, direct bus, 37 min.
Calw > Wildberg, direct train, 14 min.
Calw > Zavelstein, train or bus, 4-15 minutes depending on actual destination

• Option 1 –
o Waiblingen: City History Museum (another family town)

This is a day trip by train from Stuttgart, 10-15 minutes by train each way

o Augsburg: Fugger and Welser Museum, Rathaus, Cathedral
o Ulm: Danube Swabian Central Museum

My choice would be to hit these two destinations as an overnight "break" from your multi-night stay in Stuttgart... Make Ulm a stopover for sightseeing (use station lockers for bags) on the way to Augsburg (one night there.) The next day, complete your Augsburg sightseeing, then return to Stuttgart in the pm.

o Rothenburg: Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum

Not worth the long detour/journey, and if you are serious about Marksburg, there's a torture-instrument display there.

o Braubach: Marksburg Castle

On your penultimate sightseeing day in Europe: Travel Zurich to Koblenz (direct EC train; 10:59 - 16:11.) Check into a hotel near the Main station. You may wish to take the Cable Car ride over to Ehrenbreitstein fortress (open until 7 pm) and back. On your final sightseeing day in Europe: drop bags at front desk, take the direct train to Braubach (about 12 minutes) for a castle tour and lunch. Return to Koblenz for bags; travel from Koblenz to MAINZ (direct train, 60 min.) for your final night, a walk through town, dinner. See the Gutenberg Museum? The Temple of Isis and Mater Magna? Then on fly-home day, you are just 25 minutes from FRA airport by direct train.

I like being close to FRA for fly-home day. And I like Mainz better than Koblenz. But it would also be possible to skip Mainz the day before and get an airport hotel instead. Or... you could stay a 2nd night in Koblenz, then catch a direc train to FRA the same day you fly home (if you aren't bothered by the chance that fate will have its way with the longish Koblenz > FRA train ride, possibly upending a timely arrival.)

Hi Russ - Wow - thank you for your detailed input. I'm now working on an itinerary based on flying in to Zurich and out of Munich per the suggestion of another. I think you are right about skipping Rothenburg as too out of the way. That simplifies things. And I like your idea about doing Ulm as a stopover on the way to Augsburg and on to Munich to depart. Festung Ehrenbreitstein and the cable car look like great ideas. I'm looking at combining that with Marksburg as a day trip from Stuttgart on a Monday since they are both open on Mondays when little else seems to be. It would be a packed day, but fun if the weather is good.

Excellent suggestions! And, yes, I meant SW of Stuttgart not SE. My sense of direction is not as bad as my typing skills :-).

Festung Ehrenbreitstein and the cable car look like great ideas. I'm looking at combining that with Marksburg as a day trip from Stuttgart on a Monday since they are both open on Mondays when little else seems to be.

IMO that's an excessively distant destination for a day trip from Stuttgart. Ehrenbreitstein and Marksburg would be doable if you were overnighting closer by or flying out of FRA, but otherwise...

• Speyer (Technik-Museum) is a reasonable day trip from Stuttgart.

I like your idea about doing Ulm as a stopover on the way to Augsburg and on to Munich to depart.
How about fitting in an additional night in Augsburg instead of daytripping to the north? Try this:

• The walled Romantic Road town of Nördlingen and Harburg Castle - use Harburg(Schwab) as the rail destination - are near one another just NW of Augsburg with direct train connections to Augsburg and just one hour of travel time each way. Combine the two for a reasonable day trip from Augsburg... and add a night to your stay in Augsburg. N'lingen resembles Rothenburg to a degree, a core difference being it's occupied not only by tourists and those who serve them, but by normal Germans from all walks of life. Links below:

https://www.kaisheim.de/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/Noerdlingen.jpg

https://www.noerdlingen.de/fileadmin/noerdlingen/prospekte/pdf/Ortsprospekt_Englisch-Franzoesisch_2019.pdf

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187317-d252034-Reviews-Harburg_Castle-Harburg_Swabia_Bavaria.html

Hi Russ. Thanks again for your input! I have added Speyer Technik Museum as day trip from Stuttgart! It will be right up our alley. And, after seeing pictures of the cable car across the Rhine and the viewing platform over the river at Ehrenbreitstein, I MUST go. You are right about it being a long day trip from Stuttgart, so I have canned the idea of trying to squeeze in a tour of Marksburg that same day. I also added a day trip from Stuttgart to Gundelsheim (Neckar) to see the raptor show and tour at Burg Guttenberg. So far, I'm hitting a good balance between historical sites and museums vs. things that will be of more interest to my son.

Would you or any other readers happen to know of any interesting WW2 sites that could be seen in a day trip from Stuttgart or Augsburg? We've been to the Holocaust Museum in Wash D.C. and I have visited Dachau and the excellent Dokumentationszentrum München. Are there any sites focused on the destruction wrought by Allied bombing or the reconstruction period? Would Nuremberg cover more than just the trials?

If the Technical Museum in Speyer is on your list (and it's really good), you may just want to kill something else and visit Sinsheim for it's partner. Sinsheim has more WWII military stuff and the two Concordes. You can easily find lodging in Speyer, or any of the small wine villages or cities in the region. Allow me to suggest Deidesheim, or Bad Durkheim (which is easier by train).

Deidesheim is a small town in the Rhine Pfalz Valley, just outside of Bad Durkheim. It’s surrounded by vineyards and there are several world class wines produced locally. The town is medieval in age, and there are still fortifications and the old city walls are visible, although in many places they have been incorporated into more modern structures. A part of the moat is now a public park.
Deidesheim is popular with German and other European tourists but not often visited by Americans. It is not on the beaten path. But it has a number of highly rated lodgings, and several Michelin restaurants, at least two of which are booked months in advance.
This is a very good place to visit and take in a wine tasting or just a really good meal.

You ask about WW2 sites that could be seen in a day trip from Stuttgart or Augsburg?

Nuremberg has another Documentation Center. But your previous travel experience indicates that repeated lessons from Nazi Doc centers and Concentration Camp Memorial sites would probably be unrewarding; if I am wrong, and you are wanting more of the same, Osthofen (near Worms, not far from Speyer) or Cologne (north of Koblenz) might be accommodating:

https://www.gedenkstaette-osthofen-rlp.de/en/osthofen-concentration-camp
https://museenkoeln.de/ns-dokumentationszentrum/Start-EN

What you likely have NOT seen previously are actual military sites. So...

• Once you reach Koblenz on your outing from Stuttgart, you are pretty close to Remagen, a Rhine River town with easy train access on the main railway to the north. Here, US forces eventually crossed the Rhine at the site of the former "Bridge at Remagen" (also called the Ludendorff Bridge.) This struggle was chronicled in a 1960's-era film with this title, starring George Segal, Ben Gazzara, and Robert Vaughn. Today, there's a museum housed inside the supports of the old bridge which tells the story, focusing also on the impact of the war on local communities. Many displays are in English, as I recall. (Remagen is small, but the town and the area get lots of visitors from the Netherlands and from Great Britain, as well as some American travelers, and usually these visitors do not know any German.)

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g642105-d2165317-Reviews-Peace_Museum_Bridge_at_Remagen-Remagen_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

• German military bunkers were typically dynamited after the war. A few of those which were not have been opened to the public. They can be found along the "Westwall" at Germany's western border, of course, and tend to be open just on weekends. You are too far from the one near Germany's oldest city -Trier - to see "Panzerwerk Katzenkopf." Same is true for B-Werk Besseringen in the town of Merzig. So I mention these places largely as a resources for others who might be interested and are traveling in these areas. But Speyer and the towns of Deidesheim and Bad Dürkheim (see KGC's post) are not all that far from Pirmasens, where Festungswerk Gerstfeldhöhe is located:

https://www.westwall-museum.de/englisch/index.html

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g642102-d2284134-Reviews-Westwall_Museum-Pirmasens_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

With the growing number of places north of Stuttgart that appear to fit your interests - Ehrenbreitstein, Marksburg, Remagen, Pirmasens, Osthofen, Cologne - it seems like spending a night or two in that direction could salvage some of them.

This orientation map for the state of Rheinland-Pfalz + Saarland shows the locations of Speyer, Sinsheim, Pirmasens, Merzig, Worms, and Trier. Remagen, not shown, is between Bonn and Andernach.

https://www.welt-atlas.de/datenbank/karten/karte-1-204.gif

This detailed map shows rail connections for the same area:

https://www.vrminfo.de/fileadmin/data/pdf/2017/RLP-Ticket_streckennetz.pdf

Hi KGC, Thank you for your suggestion on the Sinsheim museum! I checked their website and they have an impressive range of exhibits, so we'll consider that. I'm afraid wine tasting is off the menu for this trip. My 2025 New Years resolution is to drink no alcohol this year, which is going to be very hard to do with all the good beers in Germany. :-(

Hi Russ, You interpreted correctly that I am not looking for addition coverage of the Nazi regime build-up or the Holocaust topics. I am very interested in learning more about the impact of the war on the German people, especially in the northern Black Forest region, and the aftermath (Allied occupation, migration, de-Nazification, rebuilding - where did the money come from and how were decisions made?). I just learned about the relatively new Documentation Center for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation in Berlin and can see online that just the subject alone brings up many strong feelings. So perhaps I need to pursue this in books rather than museums.

I really want to get to the museums in Ulm and Augsburg as I have Donauschwaben and Fugger's in my family tree, so I will likely save the Rhineland north of Koblenz for another trip. Hoping to do a barge/bike trip there with husband someday, so I'm adding your suggestions to my bucket list. Thank you!