My dad (he's 72) and I are going to Germany mid-October. Originally I thought we'd stay in Frankfurt for a few days but now I'm thinking it might be better to hop on a train at the airport and go straight to Stuttgart. We can catch the last day of the Cannstatter Volksfest and stay for a few more nights. I think we're just going to use a train as transportation. Which close cities do you recommend for one or two day trips from Stuttgart? He loves beer, culture, churches (not so much museums) and food.

Thanks in advance.

I'm just about to go on a trip to Stuttgart (August) and will be in the region for a week for work-related reasons. We discovered a lot of the tourism revolves around the Bottwartal (Bottwar valley), which is a wine-growing region. There are also a lot of castles in the region. I understand Stuttgart is not that amazing but pleasant enough, although since this will be my first visit I can't really give an opinion. If you are a culture vulture Marbach am Neckar has quite a few museums. Tübingen (university town) is also a good day trip from the area and is picturesque.

I would reconsider the Frankfurt area though. I used to live in Wiesbaden and can testify that there is a lot to do in and around the Rhein-Main area. There are pockets of Frankfurt that are lovely, even if there is a lot of 'big city'. If you want trip reports, a Fodorite called texasbookworm did a lot of research here and also did a report. Do a search under her name and be sure to read some of her threads as there was far more information than she was able to act on, even though she spent about 2 weeks in the area.

Lavandula

Tübingen comes to mind as an easy day trip from Stuttgart, under 1 hr train ride south. It's a lovely university town on the Neckar River.

You and your dad might also appreciate trips to Baden-Baden (about 1.5 hrs by train west), Heidelberg (less than 1 hr northwest), or Schwäbisch Gmünd (30+ minutes east).

Thank you! I'll look into them.

Agree with Tubingen. Bad Wimpfen would be a fun small old town. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tubingen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Wimpfen

For churches, Heidelberg is about hour north of Stuttgart on direct trains. Speyer (also north) requires a change in Heidelberg to the S-bahn and is therefore almost 2 hours. And the 1 hour trip south-west to Strasbourg on a direct train is pretty pricey (more than 300 USD round trip). Headng East, Ulm is less than an hour, and Munich is only a little over 2 hours on a direct train. Some of the smaller towns mentioned above have nice churches.

It sounds like you would get a lot of bang for your buck if you got a German Rail Twin Pass. Giving credit to PalenQ (look up comments on this board), it provides complete flexibility and costs about the same as very restrictive advance purchase tickets if you use the train more than 4-5 days.

Also, quoting PalenQ,
"Passes also provide free travel on S-Bahns within large cities like Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, etc. and whilst you would not want to burn one day on a pass just to ride S-Bahns on days when you do use your railpass you could use these S-Bahns for the rest of the day or night - or in the morning to get to the main train station when leaving or day tripping.

Like when you get to Munich you can ride the S-Bahn from the main train station thru the heart of downtown Munich - to the Marienplatz, etc with a pass - just hop on - saves a few euros and another benefit of a pass."

Have fun at the Volksfest!!!

Volksfest and Tubingen - a sweet couple of days!

Also;

Ulm; 1:00 direct
Schwaebisch Hall ; 1:30 change at Heilbronn
Sigmaringen (Burg Hohenzollern) ; 1:55 direct A "wow" castle in the Neckar Valley http://tinyurl.com/qbhpvjv