We will be travelling to Stuttgart in October to attend a photography workshop being run by a friend.
Our first two nights will be spent in Tubingen (where our friend lives).
From there we%26#39;ll be travelling to Inzigkofen, where the workshop will be held (within a beautiful old abbey).
We then have two nights free before our flight home.
First question is whether or not I%26#39;m right to stay in Stuttgart for those two nights or should be looking at somewhere else? (We won%26#39;t be renting a car so will be reliant on public transport).
Second question is: if we do stay in Stuttgart, can anyone recommend specific hotels and also give us advice on which districts of the city to favour/ avoid?
Any advice much appreciated.
PS In terms of hotel we haven%26#39;t got an absolutely fixed budget but would prefer to keep it below 150 Euros a night if possible, including breakfast. We do like spacious and comfortable rooms, preferably with both tub and shower in the bathroom rather than shower only. Not too fussed about pool. Definitely don%26#39;t care about gyms. For us, attractiveness (and cleanliness) and amenities of room together with location within the city are more important. We aren%26#39;t big walkers (I have hip problems) so either need to be central to main attractions or well placed to use public transport.
THANK YOU!
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%26quot;First question is whether or not I%26#39;m right to stay in Stuttgart for those two nights or should be looking at somewhere else? (We won%26#39;t be renting a car so will be reliant on public transport).%26quot;
Stuttgart ( www.stuttgart-tourist.de ) would be an excellent choice. Besides the city center sights like the three palaces, Stiftskirche (old church), and Markthalle with the sights and smells of gourmet foods from around the world, there%26#39;s plenty of other things to see and do such as the excellent Mercedes Benz and Porsche Musuems, Stuttgart is after all where the automobile was invented. Wilhelma ( www.wilhelma.de ) is Europe%26#39;s largest combination zoo-botanical garden set amidst the nice Moorish architecture of this former palace. There are three mineral baths associated with western Europes%26#39;s largest mineral waters, in the Leuze one you can swim in bubbly carbonated water. You can go up the world%26#39;s first modern TV tower for the views. The Staatsgallerie is excellent for art, and their are two other art museums. Stuttgart is also the largest city in Germany with vineyards, and also a rarity among large European cities in that they are extensive. You can take a panoramic walk through them with wineries and places to eat along the way ( www.stuttgarter-weinwanderweg.de ). Stuttgart ballet is world-reknown, and the opera one of Germany%26#39;s finest. There%26#39;s a lot more to see and do in Stuttgart, but that is some of the better things to do, you could also click on my name to see some of my past forum replies. The world%26#39;s second largest beer festival, the Cannstatter Volksfest ( www.cannstatter-volksfest.de ) is from 25Sept to 11Oct. You can get around Stuttgart and its surroundings easily by public transportation.
Nearby, 15 minutes by S-bahn, are two excellent places: Esslingen ( www.esslingen.de ) with its well preserved medieval center; and Ludwigsburg ( www.ludwigsburg.de ) with Germany%26#39;s largest perfectly preserved Baroque palace (in www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de ), the Swabian Versailles, with enough to see for several days including the longest and best palace tour that I%26#39;ve been on in Europe and extensive gardens including a nice fairytale one. The special pumpkin exhibition will be on then, with the largest pumpkins and squash in Europe, and large themed sculptures made from these vegetables.
Oh, why your in Tuebingen, make sure to see the lovely well preserved medieval Bebenhausen Monastery just north of it (in www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de ).
%26quot;Second question is: if we do stay in Stuttgart, can anyone recommend specific hotels and also give us advice on which districts of the city to favour/ avoid?%26quot;
Personally, I would stay in the center of Stuttgart. There are no bad areas in Stuttgart, some are just more convenient than others. A place that I always recommend is the City Hotel which gets good reviews on TripAdvisor. For me it is a 10 minute walk to the absolute center of town, the Schloss Platz, but even quicker by the four U-bahn lines a block away. However, I don%26#39;t know what the interior is like except that it is more than acceptable from our friends that have stayed there. A block away from it is Wirt am Berg, another hotel. Both hotels should be on the order of 100€ or less a night, and among other ways, hotel rooms are bookable through www.stuttgart-tourist.de .
If you have any further questions about Stuttgart, or special types of things you might like to see, just ask, as I live there.
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I just looked up Inzigkofen on a map. The Hohenzollern Palace ( www.hohenzollern.com ) in nearby Sigmaringen is excellent with a large medieval armor and weapons collection. The area heading west along the Danube River with its idyllic gorge through the Swabian Alb ( www.schwaebischealb.de ) is excellent with lots of palaces and castles perched atop the cliffs and nice Beuron monastery. Perhaps your workshop will include those sights. If not, take time to see some of it and you will be well rewarded.
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Thank you so much for your comprehensive and very helpful reply. Just what I was hoping for!
With your list of Stuttgart attractions, I think we%26#39;ll definitely go for staying in the city itself. We%26#39;re not as interested in cars as we are in botanical gardens, so we%26#39;ll probably miss two of the most popular tourist attractions (the car museums) but are looking forward to the rest.
I just checked the City Hotel on tripadvisor and the reviews are mostly positive bar the last two. Will look into that recommendation, thank you. Have you also come across the Mo Hotel? I can%26#39;t tell whether area is good for someone preferring not to walk too much to the attractions? I haven%26#39;t checked it on tripadvisor yet either.
Annoyingly, my choice of hotel in Tubingen is fully booked. I don%26#39;t know why I didn%26#39;t book it months ago when I first narrowed down our choice, but I forgot and thought I had plenty of time. That was Hotel Am Schloss so now have to pick a second choice. Not sure yet. Did look at tripadvisor plus mapped them all on google map but not sure which one suits us best.
Thanks as well for the extra recos for Inzigkofen. Our friend lives in Tubingen and has been to the Abbey a number of times so I think he will have a good idea of the attractions locally and I think he has mapped out most of our time during the workshop days but I will discuss with him what we%26#39;ll be doing.
THANKS AGAIN!
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%26quot;With your list of Stuttgart attractions, I think we%26#39;ll definitely go for staying in the city itself. We%26#39;re not as interested in cars as we are in botanical gardens, so we%26#39;ll probably miss two of the most popular tourist attractions (the car museums) but are looking forward to the rest.%26quot;
I haven%26#39;t been to the new Porsche Museum yet, but have visited the Mercedes Museum at least four times. I%26#39;m not that great a lover of cars, but the museum is just excellent and loved by all visitors irregardless of gender or age. It documents the over 120 year history of this firm and the automobile through the use of 160 vehicles including: Mercedes through the years; automotive improvements; racing and record setting cars; and cars used or driven by famous people such as the Popemobile. The building itself (as is the Porche Museum) is architecturally interesting, and as you spiral down between floors there is a time line on the walls with important world events since the invention of the automobile, interesting in itself and also to see what was selected to be included. Then there are such things as movies, one of which relates to the use of forced labor in the plants during WW II. With prearrangement, you can also visit the motor factory nextdoor. To me, it would be a shame to miss it, but there are plenty of other excellent things to do.
Wilhelma is just lovely, a pleasant blend of plants, animals, and nice old Moorish architecture. Hoehenpark Killesberg is also a nice place to go with its gardens (usually experimental dahlia beds among other things), long minature train ride, flamingoes, some animals like llamas, sheep and ponies that would appeal to young children, and the architecturally interesting double helix tower that can be climbed (probably a problem for you) for nice views over the northern part od Stuttgart. It is nextdoor to the architecturally important houses in Weissenhofseidlung.
%26quot;I just checked the City Hotel on tripadvisor and the reviews are mostly positive bar the last two. Will look into that recommendation, thank you. Have you also come across the Mo Hotel? I can%26#39;t tell whether area is good for someone preferring not to walk too much to the attractions? I haven%26#39;t checked it on tripadvisor yet either.%26quot;
I think that the Mo.Hotel is in Vaihingen and not Stuttgart itself, quite a ways from the center of Stuttgart. However, there are frequent U-bahns and S-bahns that will take you within a few blocks of this hotel. As you don%26#39;t need a room until October, why don%26#39;t you get on the tourist office website ( www.stuttgart-tourist.de ) and have them send you a copy of Hotels 2009 Stuttgart und Region. It will have most of the hotels in and around Stuttgart in it arranged by area such as Stadtzentrum (city center), have a picture of the hotel, its prices, location, amenities, and how to get to it from the train station. Also, request any other free information you might like.
%26quot;Annoyingly, my choice of hotel in Tubingen is fully booked. I don%26#39;t know why I didn%26#39;t book it months ago when I first narrowed down our choice, but I forgot and thought I had plenty of time. That was Hotel Am Schloss so now have to pick a second choice. Not sure yet. Did look at tripadvisor plus mapped them all on google map but not sure which one suits us best.%26quot;
I don%26#39;t know if staying at the Hotel am Schloss would be good with someone with hip problems as it sits on the hill just below the castle, somewhat of a walk up, but in a lovely location, and would be my choice if I were to stay in Tuebingen. We%26#39;ve only eaten there, and I didn%26#39;t particularly care for their food. (Die Forelle is a much better restaurant.) There is another small hotel just down the street from it which I noticed but know nothing about, I think at the first cross street. I think it has something like Hospital in its name. Perhaps another place to stay within the lovely old town.
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I think that%26#39;s the De Casa which I am looking into as my second choice for Tubingen.
Thanks again for your advice, it%26#39;s very helpful and very generous of you. :)
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After looking at the Tuebingen website, www.tuebingen.de , I see that the hotel I was talking about is the Hotel Hospiz, http://www.hotel-hospiz.de/ (unfortunately only in German although they have their directory menu in 3 languages but hotel information is usually understandable), which has a nice setting within a block of the Rathaus in the heart of the old town. Double rooms are a little over 100€ a night with breakfast included, but I know nothing about this hotel but its excellent location. Our favorite Tuebingen restaurant, Die Forelle, is about a block away.
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Yes, sorry I realised after I posted that I had got them mixed up. I have sent an enquiry off to the Hospiz so will see if they have availability.
Thanks for the restaurant recommendation, I will make a note of it!
:)
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OK well, we had a sudden change of heart in that we decided to splurge. I spent a couple of hours just now looking through the tripadvisor top 12, reading the reviews, mapping my shortlist onto Google Maps (using My Maps) so I could compare locations and then checking what prices were available.
I narrowed it down to Le Meridien, City Hotel (recommended by yourself) and Arcotel Carmino.
As our accommodations in Tubingen and Ingowhatsit won%26#39;t be particularly lux I had a mad moment and went for Le Meridien! I had read about city view rooms (noisy) versus park or courtyard view rooms (quiet) but only city view were coming up on their online res system (checked the discount sites first, no joy). Called their UK number for international res first - spoke to was useless so called hotel directly. 200 Euros per night for deluxe courtyard room including breakfast. More than had initially planned but, what the heck! :)
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The Meridien is a nice hotel, and fairly centrally located. It is just across the Palace Garden from the train station, midway between two U-bahn stations having 5 lines, and close to both the Opera House and the Staatgallerie. I%26#39;m sure that you%26#39;ll enjoy it.
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