My husband and I will be traveling in southern Germany in the middle of September. We are arriving in Stuttgart and attending a wedding nearby. After the wedding weekend we plan to travel to Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber, Nuremberg, Munich (Oktoberfest) and then to Neuschwanstein. (We are planning to drive)

After we visit the castles we will have a few days for which we have nothing planned. Any recommendations for places to visit? We will be flying out of Stuttgart. We have thought about driving down to Switzerland or Austria but not sure if that would be a good idea or what all to do there either.

Any advice on places to see on our trip would be greatly appreciated.

Do you already have reservations for Munich? They're tough to get during Oktoberfest.

Salzburg, Austria is an easy 1.5 hour drive from Munich. It's a nice town and the nearby Salzkammergut area with its mountains and lakes is lovely. (Note you need to buy a vignette, a window sticker, to drive in Austria; they're available at the border and at nearby gas stations.)

You can see another of mad King Ludwig's castles, Herrenchiemsee, on an island en route between Munich and Salzburg.

Our favorite part of Germany was the Mosel River. It's sleepy, lined with vineyards and supercute little towns. As opposed to the Rhine, even the scenic section north of Frankfurt, south of Koblenz, which has many castles but is more a working river.

There are a number of scenic driving routes in Germany, of which the Romantic Road is the most well known. We took the Alpenstrasse from Salzburg to Hohenschwangau. All the routes are at this site: http://www.cometogermany.com/ENU/abo...tlfstrasse.htm

You have a few days to travel from Neuschwanstein to Stuttgart?

You might consider:

Ottobeuren Abbey near Memmingen
Ulm
The Black Forest
Schwäbisch Hall
Tübingen

All these places lie along a fairly direct path to Stuttgart.

Regards, Gary

It depends on what you mean by "a few days". If you have just 2 or 3 days, I would stay near Stuttgart (since you are attending a wedding in the area and thus have some sort of personal connection to the place, it might be nice to get to know the region a bit). You could base yourself somewhere like Tuebingen (beautiful college town south of Stuttgart) and visit some of the many lovely towns and castles in the Schwaebisch Alb region...Burg Hohenzollern, Schloss Lichtenstein and Kloster Bebenhausen (a beautifully-preserved monastery) come to mind and are very close to Tuebingen. This area is not heavily visited by foreign tourists but is quite lovely with plenty to keep you busy for a few days.

With 3 or 4 days you could also do a little trip to the Mosel and/or Rhine valleys. As Mimar describes, the Mosel is sleepier but in many ways more beautiful than the Rhine - the steep hillsides lined with vineyards are simply spectacular, and you might even see some vines starting to show their fall colors. You could visit Burg Eltz, Trier with its Roman ruins, and do a river cruise. The Rhine has more in the way of castles (of the authentic medieval variety) but is not quite as scenic.

At this stage in the game I wouldn't start planning a trip to Austria or Switzerland unless you know where you want to go and what you want to do...which doesn't seem to be the case since you are asking us for advice. ;-)

My vote would be to stay near Stuttgart (I am biased because I lived there for 2.5 years). You are already covering a lot of ground, so why not relax and get to know the area.

Gary and hausfrau have the good ideas. My husband and I spent 2 weeks driving through that area and we could still return again and again. We ended up on that trip going to Basel. It's quite a ways and probably not worth your time since you only have a week.

Stuttgart, itself is an interesting city and worth some time.
The Schwaebisch Alb region is beautiful and Schloss Lichtenstein is a small buy mighty structure, I'm so glad I went.

I can understand the reason people do the "highlights of Germany" tour, though. Everyone has their own travel style and pace.

BTW, you won't be far from Baden-Baden, that's a highlight.

A few days? Perfect for a circular swing in an easterly direction - first for lunch you drive from Munich to the pretty lake and fabulous palace of http://www.herrenchiemsee.de/englisc...lace/index.htm,
by dinnertime you'll be in Salzburg,
drive back via Passau and Landshut.

Look them up and you'll see what I mean.

"supercute" ?

Aramis - it's a technical term, like "it's all good" and "at the end of the day" - get used to it ;-)

I will do no such thing.

Re: supercute. Well, I thought cute or even very cute wasn't quite accurate. Extremely picturesque seems a bit labored. Fortunately American English offered me a snappy alternative.

Aramis, if you're going to spend your time getting sniffy about additions to the English language, you won't have time for much else.

A must see festival in southern Germany in September

http://www.viehscheid.com/viehscheid...-the-cows.html

Trust me - don't miss it!!

Be sure to arrive for the start.

Octoberfest is for tourists - These festivals are far more authentic!

"sniffy"?

As long as you are right there in Stuttgart, consider attending Cannstatter Volksfest instead of Oktoberfest as it is the second largest beer festival in world.