Stuttgart Travel Forum

Hi--

Heading to Stuttgart in Feb with friends for a week. We have 1 friend that lives there but he will be working some. We are open to traveling around, possibly staying in other places for a few nights. Any suggestions on what we should not miss?

Thanks!

well good news and bad news . for more than twenty years when you looked at fordors information on stuttgart about all he wrote in his book was ,
the best thing about stuttgart is the trains leaving.
it was known to have a polution problem sometimes because it sits in the bottom of a bowl sort of with what some call low mountains and others call large hills all around it.
the good news is that there are very good train connection from there. and at least one low cost airline flys from there.
also one of the best palaces in europe a short ride from stuttgart ( less than an hour. the town use to have ludwi-something in the name.
i remember because the palace was built by some person of royality that did not care for the wife that was choosen for him.
so he had this one built for himself and much of his royal court

two stories that i recall about royal palaces in germany are that one person of royality saw this very pretty young lady selling flowers. he decided to give her the job of flowers supervisor the royal residence.
she was also required to travel along when he traveled to supervise the flowers.
the flowers lady ending up having somewhere between 13 and 18 children. can not recall exactly. remember it was more than 12 and less than 23.
she married someone other than royality. about half the kids looked like her husband. many looked liked the person that she took care of the flowers for.

another story is that this royal person could not get along with his wife and her family at her familys palace. since he and his family had a great deal of money and he liked the area where his wife and inlaws lived he decided to build his on place.
he was very fond of the ladies and started having many spend weeks at his place.
he hired some of the best painters in germany to come and paint them semi nude and total nude with object placed just so to hide a certai area of the body.
sort of the heffer of his day.
he had these painting all over the palace. i think they said there was paintings of several hundred different woman. 400 comes to mind.
well news traveled slow in those days. after a few years news goot back to
some big shot guy in germany.
the guy had his royal title taken away i think.
the paintings were not destroyed and were in the palace in the late 70`ths when
i went there on a tour.

that town of ludi-something may be part of stuttgart now if the city has grown a great deal since 1978.

Stuttgart
http://www.stuttgart-tourist.de/
- the new Mercedes Benz Museum (not only for the cars)
http://www.mercedes-benz-musuem.de
- the Wilhelma (a nice combination of zoo and botanical garden)
http://www.wilhelma.de/
- Das LEUZE (a good combination of a mineral bath and leisure pool)
http://www.stuttgart.de/baeder/kbb.php?producer=mav&proc=mav_item.show&page=gen&id=138280&xsl=kbb_item_special.xsl
Stuttgart has the 2nd biggest mineral springs in Europe.
- Museum am Löwentor (natural history - i.e. fossils. Really impressive the local content of the displays from Stuttgart and surroundings.
- other good museums:
Lindenmuseum (State Museum of Ethnology)
http://www.lindenmuseum.de/html/english/home/home.php
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (state gallery)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
- TV tower (the first one of its kind. Due the high location good views)
http://www.fernsehturm-stuttgart.de/
- Stuttgart Opera (probably the best opera house of today in Germany)
- Stuttgart Ballet (maybe even more famous)
http://www.staatstheater-stuttgart.de/

Stuttgart area
- Ludwigsburg (the in the previous posts mentioned place)
http://www.ludwigsburg.de/servlet/PB/menu/1026879_l2/index.html
Don't put too much into legends. It was just common to move the royal residence out of the city centre (Paris -> Versailles, Berlin -> Potsdam, Munich -> Nymphenburg, Stuttgart -> Ludwigsburg)
- Esslingen (the biggest city in the state Baden-Württemberg not destroyed in WWII).
http://www.esslingen-tourist.de/english/Sehenswert.htm

Both cities are just 10-15 min by S-Bahn/regional trains from Stuttgart.
Best to use a VVS mit group day ticket (EUR 13,50).
http://www.vvs.de/en/index.php

There are some more sights in the VVS area. See e.g. the Stuttgart Tourism site.

Swabian Alb
http://www.schwaebischealb.de/
Black Forest
http://www.blackforest-tourism.com/
Baden-Württemberg Tourism
http://www.tourismus-bw.de/homepage.236030.1403,232927.htm

Similar to the VVS mini group day ticket, but valid for the whole state Baden-Württemberg, the Baden-Württemberg Ticket
http://tinyurl.com/rw7l5

thanks for some links to some thinks to do and see.
i will save them incase i have to spend some time in that part of germany again.

Make sure that you visit Schloss Solitude, than Calw is a place to see (some 35-40km). Herman Hesse was born there and there is a nice museum dedicated to him. Not to mention that the town itself is adorable. Then there is Bad Liebenzell with Burg Liebenzell and Therme. And don't forget that you are in the Schwarzwald so enjoy the wonderful nature´. But if you are a great shopping lover, you'l find out yourself the König Strasse in Stuttgart. But there are also "Leo Centre" in Leonberg and "Breuninger" in Böblingen. When you do restaurants, don't go to some famous restaurants in the city. Find a nice place in some of the local villages. My personal favour is "Mönchwasen" in Simmozheim. It is some 35km away from Stuttgart but it's well worth a drive :) They have their own brewery and the food is fantastic! Of course you can visit the Merzedes museum and Porsche museum. People seem to be forgetting that this great car is being produced right here in Stuttgart area :)