I looked through the RS books to find anything along the Eurail between Stuttgard and before we head into Zurich, Switzerland..Anyone know of anyplace that would have a room for one night along the Eurail, Mom thinks she can go further than Stuttgard in one day on the train..I hear Zurich is so expensive, so we thought maybe a small town that the Stuttgard eurail train would stop before Switzerland..Anyone?
Thanks for all your help...We are looking for a place for tomorrow night...
Lauren
I would find out where your train will make stops and check Trip-Advisor.com for local reviews.I'm betting your train will route through Tuebingen. That's a great university town, cute, and likely to have moderately priced accommodations.
First, I quote from the Eurail website, "Eurail is not a railway company itself. This means that there is no such thing as a Eurail train [my emphasis]." The ICE from Stuttgart (note spelling) to Zürich is operated by the national rail company of Germany, Deutsche Bahn.
The problem with taking an all rail connection from Rothenburg to Stuttgart is that Stuttgart is basically SW of Rothenburg and you leave Rothenburg and go NE to Steinach, which is on a line that runs NW to SE, from Würzburg to Munich, roughly perpendicular to where you want to go. It is really roundabout, and takes extra time, by rail to Stuttgart.
The Bahn schedule shows a bus leaving the Rothenburg Bahnhof at 9:08, going to Schrozberg at 9:40, where you can catch at train at 9:59, arriving at Stuttgart at 11:53 after a change in Crailsheim.
If you hurry you can catch the direct ICE to Zürich at 12:04, arriving at 14:48. That makes the whole trip 5h40m, about 2/3 of the 8 hours you thought it would take. Or, you could spend two hours in Stuttgart, have a nice lunch and look around, then go on to Zürich on the 14:04 ICE, also direct.
Those direct ICEs don't stop in Tübingen, but they do stop in Singen and Schaffhausen, which are about an hour from Zürich and supposed to be nice. You could stop there for the night if you wanted to. From there to Zürich might not warrent a day of your pass; P2P tickets might be less.
The bus from Rothenberg to Schrozberg will probably not be included with you railpass, but, nevertheless, the fare should be less than €5 pP (most likely around €3 pP) and worth it for the time savings. You can use your pass from there.
Forget what I said about the bus from Rothenburg. There is a rail connection leaving 2 minutes earlier (9:06) and getting to Stuttgart at the same time, 11:53. By default, the Bahn schedule site shows only the bus connection because it is faster by 2 minutes, but if, on the query page, you click "more" after "Means of transport" and uncheck the bus option (between S-Bahn and Ship), then it will show you the all-rail connection.
Get to the station 2 minutes earlier and use your railpass all the way.
The trip from Rothenburg to Schaffhausen will take 5 hours and three changes of trains (the last one in Stuttgart). In the moring the trip from Schaffhausen to Zürich only takes about 40 minutes.
