Message: I was born in Stuttgart to American parents just after the war. I'm thinking of making a visit in May, after visiting my son in England, and going to Normandy.

Questions: What is the best way to get to Stuttgart from either Normandy or Paris?

Any ideas of a inexpensive B&B in Stuttgart?

What's to see in Stuttgart. All I find thus far is Mercedes, and I'm not very interested.

Anything close by to Stuttgart worth seeing/doing?

As a start, you might go to "Destinations" here on fodors.com and look at the miniguide for "Stuttgart and Swabian Cities." The two mentioned are Tubingen and Heidelberg, both medieval university cities. Also not far from Stuttgart is the Black Forest, for which there is also a miniguide.

I just returned from both Heidelberg and Tubingen. While the first, with its castle and famous Alstadt (old town) is a huge tourist destination, and deservedly so, the second is also worthwhile with a beautiful and historic Alstadt. There are lots of places to stay in both towns. I stayed at Hotel Anlage in Heidelberg, which was very nice and relatively inexpensive. There are others that appealed but were not open during the off season.

Interestingly, in Tubingen there is much made of the famous thinkers who studied at the University, the oldest in Germany (U. of Heidelberg is the oldest continuously operating in Germany). Signs hang throughout the Alstadt "Goethe slept here" "Hesse worked here". I found one sign irreverantly hung by a student that said "Goethe puked here".

We had a great visit to Stuttgart. If you are into art the Staatsgalerie is HUGE and has an amazing collection. There are many other museums along the Schloss Garten, the huge park in the middle of town. You'll find the official website helpful.
http://www.stgt.com/stuttgart/homee.htm

Be sure to eat swabian foods maultaschen, spaetzle, rostbraaten etc, really wonderful. There's a little restaurant Winestubbe Schellenturm, Weberstrasse 12in the Bean Quarter. It's a round building that had been a jail. We had a wonderful meal there.

Of course it's important to try the trollinger wine. Have a great trip!

grasshopper
did you take photos?

Not so many, I'm afraid. But I did post some on my Virtual Tourist pages.

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/4f0ef/d6f6/
and
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/4f0ef/33da/

As with most cities in Germany, the place to start is often www.cityname.de - - in this case, the website www.stuttgart.de takes you easily to http://www.stuttgart-tourist.de/english/index.html

The best air travel option I can find - - checking www.whichbudget.com is from CDG to Dortmund - - still leaves you with a fairly good sized train ride (3:30 nonstop) - - versus a single transfer train ride of 6.5 hours via Mannheim.

There is also low-cost air from CDG to Cologne/Bonn - - but the train is not a whole lot better than from Dortmund (2:34 with one transfer, or 3:04 with none).

Best wishes,

Rex

I have pictures, http://www.worldisround.com/articles/92735/index.html

Most of them are of the Volksfest. This may not help but you can see a few of our Hotel and the market. The market is really wonderful. If you want to shop the Konigstrasse is an easy and amazing array of shops. We enjoyed the Market area more.

Danna: Thanks for the help. A lot of people on this site think that everyone has traveled as much as they have and should know everything. You gave me some good ideas and direction!

Adamsparks.
I think that you will love Stuttgart, we did. We didn't speak the language well, but found our way around easily.

The tourist center in the rail station is realy great. They will print out a map of the transit you should take to your hotel.

If I had one regret it's that I didn't buy more "Swabische Vier(fourth liter)...(whatever the word for glass is)" I think it's Swabische Viertaschen. ...The little cups that wine is served in. They are impossible to get here, yet we had to search them out there, but when we did they were very cheap. Little did I know that I should have bought six when I had a chance.

Oh well, glad I could help. I did a travel report so you can search for it either through Stuttgart or Danna. We really liked it there!

No.. maybe it's Swabische Viertele." ... Little cute wine cups that hold a quarter liter of wine. Buy some, trust me on this!