Anyone know the region? We’ll be going there to see friends and will have a few days to look about.
If it helps, I like interesting geography, towns, marvels of engineering or engineering history, and museums as opposed to standard tourist traps like cutesy shopping areas or fairytale castles or similar.
Any suggestions?
Really have no clue but wish you luck. I know you love music, but can’t recall if you play. There is a very, very well-regarded shop in Tubingen that has vintage inventory but also makes their own highly respected guitars, mostly replicas of classic designs.
One of the owners, Willi Henkes, is considered a top authority on old Gibsons, so is often on the UMGF Vintage Corner. That is how I know of the shop. Looks incredibly charming.
Chiemsee and Neuschwanstein castles are in the area, as is Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.
I’ve never been to Tübingen myself, but if you’re interested in museums and engineering, I’ve got two recommendations: the Technik Museums at Sinsheim and Speyer (about 130 km from Tübingen), the town of Speyer is worth a visit for itself, it’s got a lovely cathedral for instance. Or of you’re willing to travel a bit more (about 250 km from Tübingen), there’s the Deutsches Museum in Munich which I visited 30 years ago; it was great then and probably more interesting now, and it’s huge, you could spend days in it. Of course Munich is a great city too with beautiful architecture, so there’d be a bonus.
The OP said he wasn’t a fan of fairy tale castles, which is pretty much the textbook definition Neuschwanstein; it was built as a vanity project and not for any real defensive purposes of a traditional castle. However, Hohenschwangau Castle is right nearby, and I’ve heard that it’s a much more genuine castle experience.
Yeah, Sinsheim and Speyer kinda felt like for-profit Smithsonians; just as many interesting cars, planes, etc. packed in as they could, but not a lot of interpretation. Still interesting, and probably the only place you’ll ever see a Tu-144 or a VFW-Fokker 614.
Other suggestions in the area:
Ulm has the tallest cathedral in the world, 530 feet. The foundation stone was laid in 1377. It was never the tallest structure in the world, the Eiffel Tower was finished first. When I was there about ten years ago, you could climb to the top (or nearly so) for a couple euros. Don’t know if you still can, and it’s not for the faint of heart.
Mercedes and Porsche both have their headquarters, and museums, in Stuttgart.
There’s a Legoland in Gunzburg; some rides and Lego reconstructions of Munich Airport, downtown Berlin, etc.
Nuremberg might be worth a trip. There are some buildings and parade grounds left from the Nazi era, castle and walls from when it was a walled city, a museum of railroads and communication. And if you’re going in the next month or so, they have a nice Christmas Market in the town square.
When my son was there he visited the Heilbron salt mines. Very interesting.
Thanks all.
I had to read that twice before I realised how the necessary implication made it work.
Tübingen itself is worth ‘a few days’ of looking around if you are not in the mood to travel widely. (my credentials: I have been working in Tübingen for 22 years now; used to live there for 20 years but now commute by train from Stuttgart)
Tübingen is only middling old: judging from the form of the name it was settled some time in the Great Migration in the 4th-6th century but the first mention in documents was only when king Heinrich IV besieged the castle in 1078.
No visible roman ruins; the next roman ruins of note are in neighboring Rottenburg, where a roman latrine and cloaca was excavated and is now in the basement of a parking garage. In Hechingen-Stein (30 km to the south) there is a reconstruction of a Roman villa rustica; in Hechingen there is also Hohenzollern Castle.
Tübingen was made an university town in 1477 by Count Eberhard In The Beard* and the university has been the most important industry since then (in contrast to industrial towns like neightbouring Reutlingen). Students make up about a third of the population.
For a first overview of the town centre climb the tower of the Stiftskirche (Collegiate Church): pass through the nave to the chancel where most of the counts and dukes of Württemberg are buried, pay entrance fee to nave and tower, climb.
Tübingen is at the foot of the Swabian Jura escarpment; there is a lot of nice but unadventurous hiking in the region (we people of a certain age hike a lot).
Architecture: nice medieval/early modern town centre; a middling castle (now mostly university departments and a museum of antiquities - do look at the prehistoric sculptures) that was nicely made whole after the French took it in 1647.
History of science: In the castle kitchen DNA was discovered (the substance not yet its structure; small museum by the university; you might also look at the other locations of the university museum);
in Haigerloch (~30 km to the SW) the Third Reich’s nuclear programme (such as it was) ended (small museum) - they didn’t even get as far as the first Chicago Pile got in 1942.
If you are into cars: museums of Mercedes and Porsche in Stuttgart. The Mercedes museum building is an interesting sight in its own right. Also Motorworld (vintage cars) in Böblingen.
The television tower in Stuttgart (built 1956) is the world’s firts reinforced concrete television tower and the prototype for the others in the world. Good look on the valley of Stuttgart.
More off-the-wall museums: In Waldenbuch (halfway between Tübingen and Stuttgart), there are two interesting museums:
If you are into geology, the 2 hour drive to Nördlingen is worth it (crater museum at Eugene-Shoemaker-Platz on the impact of 14 million years ago that made a 20 km diameter crater now filled with sediment).
Bonus: very nice old town with one of the few completely remaining walkable city walls. Nördlingen is worth a day or two in itself.
Some links to museums (sorry, mostly German language only):
Museum of Tübingen University - this 40,000 year old horse is my favourite exhibit
Museum Ritter (square art) and Museum der Alltagskultur in Waldenbuch
Atomic Cellar Museum in Haigerloch
Mercedes Benz Museum and Porsche Museum in Stuttgart
Spent some time in the region, on holiday, 10 years ago.
We liked
Zwiefalten Abbey
Lichtenstein Castle
Ulm itself
Of course ymmv
