germany

It depends a lot on what your interests are and where your flight home will leave from. Stuttgart is near the Black Forest with many interesting spots, but travel by train might limit the smaller towns to visit. Munich is relatively close with lots to do there - museums, churches, restaurants, etc. Depending where you stay, you also might be able to arrange trips to the castles and even Salzburg. A central point to stay in is better since you'll be encumbered with luggage. And German trains will get you to most places of interest. Good luck.

I, too, would suggest heading for Munich. There is so much to see in Bavaria. Stop on the way for a night in Rothenburg. From Munich you can do Füssen as a day trip by train. But before you do, there are several day trips I would suggest around Stuttgart. For a glimpse of the Black Forest, buy a Baden-Württemberg-Ticket (all day hop on/off day pass for regional trains, €21 for a single) and explore. Take the train west from Stuttgart to the town of Pforzheim, then take another train up the Nagold river to Calw. See the main street with it's Fachwerk buildings. Have lunch in one of the avant garde cafes on the mail street. After lunch, continue by train via Hochdorf to Freudenstadt (www.freudenstadt.de) . You can vjisit the many shops on the large town square. Return to Stuttgart via Eutingen im Gäu. Another day, visit the Hohenzollern castle at Hechingen. Leave Stuttgart on IRE 3255 at 10:16. It will get to the Bahnhof in Hechingen at 11:18. Seven minutes later, a bus leaves the Bahnhof for Burg Hohenzollern. If you are using another Baden-Württemburg-Ticket, the bus fare will be included. Pay attention to the bus schedule. There aren't that many buses per day to/from the castle. One should return you to the Bahnhof mid-to-late afternoon to catch the train back to Stuttgart.

Marie, you have your thread title posted twice, with pretty much the same questions posted. You can delete the 2nd one and then you can edit your thread and any of your posts at any time. Just "germany" as a title doesn't let the rest of us know what you are interested in either. If you edit the title a bit to reflect what you are asking about, you will get more answers. The more specific the questions, the more we can assist you.

Aother day (or a least partial day) trip from Stuttgart would be south to Tübingen, an old university town on the Neckar river. On your way to or from Tübingen, you could also stop in Herrenberg.

I drove down to Burg Hohenzolleren about two weeks ago, and because it's about 40 minutes south of Stuttgart, I would definitely recommend it. Even on the cloudy, rainy day that I visited, the view from the top was amazing. I've heard the castle isn't that impressive on the inside (I couldn't go inside most of it because I had my dog with me), but it's worth it for the outside alone.

The castle was built in the mid 1800s (a little earlier than Neuschwanstein) as a residence for Wilhelm, future Kaiser of Germany. It consists of two chapels (Catholic and Lutheran - I guess they were covering all bases), some great halls for entertaining, and apartments for the Kaiser and his wife. The inside is a lot smaller than it looks from the outside. However, the view from the top is impressive, as is the way it dominates the surrounding land. There had been real castles on that hill since about 1000. The last one was just abandoned sometime after the 30yrs war. Burg Hohenzollern, BTW, is the only place, other than in Colorado, where I have ever stood on the ground and looked down at an aircraft in flight.