Germany over Easter with kids - help please!
 

Will be staying in Sindelfingen (just south of Stuttgart) over Easter with 3 kids (ages 8, 8 &amp; 9). Any suggestions on our plans? We will have a car except for the last two days when my husband will be working and I will be on my own with the kids.<BR><BR>Good Friday: arrive in Frankfurt, stop and see Bad Wimpfen and Guttenburg Castle on the way to Sindelfingen.<BR><BR>Saturday: Tour Neuschwanstein Castle in early morning, check out Mary's Bridge, Tegelberg luge and possibly Tegelburg Gondola, Hohenschwangau Castle, and/or Linderhof Castle. On to Zugspitze in the afternoon.<BR><BR>Easter: Drive to Triberg to see the waterfall and Vogstbauernhof Museum. Head over to the Rhine, possibly spend the afternoon in Strasbourg. Will anything be open? <BR><BR>Monday: Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber<BR><BR>Tuesday: Drive to Switzerland, see Neuhausen am Rheinfall and Stein-am-Rhein. On to Konstanz and take the ferry to Meersburg, go to the Zepplin Museum.<BR><BR>Wednesday: No car or husband, walk around Sindelfingen. Is there anything there for the kids? <BR><BR>Thursday: Take the train to Stuttgart and go to the zoo.<BR><BR>

hi there,<BR>Sindelfingen is not a hit to spend a day (for kids and for adults). Take the d-train to Stuttgart (make shure to take a family-ticket, You can use the whole day in every public transportation). You can take a river cruise on the Neckar (starts right at the zoo), You can climb up the TV-tover in Degerloch, You can visit the Mercedes-Benz Museum (which is fun for kids), You can take a ride with the cable car (not easy to find, just ask), You can take a look at other museums that may be fun for kids (the old castle shows MA weapons and such things and the Loewentor Museum is on dinosaurs). Any special? Just ask.<BR>have fun<BR>Gar

there is a fun-park maybe 40min away from sindelfingen called TRIPSDRILL, which is pretty much like a small Disneyland but with lots of local influence/German design. Kids will love it (attractions like rollercoaster, wildwater-ride etc.) German Homepage: http://www.tripsdrill.de/tripsdrill/index.html

Thanks for the new info, it helps alot. I think we will skip the day in Sindelfingen and enjoy some of the museums in Stuttgart instead. The tv tower and cruise sound great too! Since I do not know German I had trouble with the Tripsdrill site. It looks like fun, where is it?

hi again,<BR>Tripsdrill is on the countryside, northwest of Stuttgart. I not shure, but go to there without a car is not fun and will cost You a lot of time.

Terry,<BR>You have an awfully ambitious itinerary planned! One immediate suggestion comes to mind. Switch your Saturday and Monday plans. You and assuredly the youngsters are going to be suffering some degree of jet lag. Your present plans for Saturday will no doubt be overwhelming to you and them. Neuschwanstein attracts an awful lot of visitors on weekends, particularly so on a holiday weekend. To beat the crowds of tour buses, you should be there about 8:30AM. Consider Rothenburg instead; less drive time and you might also explore Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen, as well. The youngsters might be fascinated by the Rieskrater-Museum in Nordlingen. Some fifteen million years ago a monster meteorite hit the area creating a crater a half mile deep and over 15 miles wide. The museum has an excellent display of videos replicating the event. You’ll even find a moon rock on display.<BR><BR>You might want to consider Freiburg as a destination rather than Strasbourg; you’ll be closer to it when visiting Triberg. Consider, too, driving south from Triberg to Furtwangen. Furtwangen has a museum, the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum, that exhibits more than a thousand clocks and watches and workshops where you can see how clocks are made by hand. This is a town in the heart of cuckoo clock country.<BR>

Thanks for your input Wes! We are taking your advice and switching our Saturday and Monday plans. The museum in Nordlingen sounds like a winner so we are planning a stop there. Strasbourg is still very tempting, but we have a couple more days to decide.