Stuttgart

Stuttgart => is the capital of Baden-Württemberg, Germany with approx. 580,000 inhabitants.

Get in

By plane

Stuttgart has one airport, located in Leinfelden-Echterdingen. Various airlines serve direct flight connections between Stuttgart and major German and European cities. Perhaps it will be difficult to book a direct flight to Stuttgart from outside Europe. Most airlines will fly to the major hub airports such as Frankfurt and Munich and offer connecting flights to Stuttgart. (Update: Delta Airlines and perhaps others now fly direct to Stuttgart from major U.S. cities.)

You'll most likely want to get to center of Stuttgart but are now standing somewhat outside at the airport in Leinfelden-Echterdingen.

By train

The main station (Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof) is located in the very center of Stuttgart. Timetables for trains and booking are available on the webpages of Deutsche Bahn AG. For getting on from Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof and around in the city of Stuttgart itself, see Public Transportation below.

By car

The state highways A8 and A81 form a cross near Stuttgart ('Stuttgarter Kreuz'). The City is located in the upper right quarter of that cross. West/east-Highway A8 passes Stuttgart slightly to the south, north/south-highway A81 passes slightly to the west. Generally, follow the sign "Stuttgart Zentrum" to get to the center of Stuttgart (and try to not loose yourself in a suburb district: there are smaller towns all over the place melted together to form Stuttgart.)

Smaller but important routes from the center of Stuttgart to the areas outside are the B10 (to the east: Esslingen, Göppingen), B14 (to the southwest: 'Stuttgarter Kreuz', Sindelfingen, Böblingen) and B27 (to the south: airport, Tübingen, Reutlingen, to the north: Ludwigsburg).

Get around

Public transportation

Public transportation is provided by the U-Bahn and S-Bahn. For short distances, it is best to use the U-Bahn (or bus if necessary). For longer distances (to get to the suburbs) the S-Bahn is faster but has fewer stations than the U-Bahn.

Public transportation at late night (after 0:00am) is a problem! On the weekend there are night buses, but they are infrequent (1:11am, 2:22am and 3:33am) and on odd routes. Be careful if you have a very early airplane since there are no connections to the airport in the early morning between 1 and 5.

If you are staying for more than a day, for added mobility buy a special 3 days ticket available only in the hotels or at the airport. These tickets are valid for the entire VVS network. The city transport network is separated in zones. The city of Stuttgart is only Zone 1 and 2. Normal tickets are available at the many automats in the stations.

There are six S-Bahn lines (S1...S6) and ten U-Bahn lines (U1...U9 + old Nr15) and several bus lines. Most lines will lead via Hauptbahnhof, ending in a layout that is pretty centralistic: If you want to go somewhere, chances are, you have to ride via Hauptbahnhof. The following U-Bahn or S-Bahn stations are located in the heart of the city: Hauptbahnhof, Schlossplatz, Charlottenplatz, Stadtmitte (Rotebühlplatz), Feuersee, Rathaus, Staatsgalerie, and Berliner Platz (Liederhalle). For a complete description see the official map of rail network.

A speciality of public transportation is the rack-railway between Stuttgart-Marienplatz and Stuttgart-Degerloch. It is the only urban rack-railway in Germany!

There is an old cable-car running from Stuttgart-Heslach to the cementary. It is monument-protected.

The http://www.vvs.de is a useful tool that gives prices and detailed information on how to reach every location, including foot paths to buildings.

Stuttgart's public transportation on the web - Homepage: http://www.vvs.de - English version: http://www.vvs.de/en/index.php

Walking

In the inner city, walking is no problem. The distances are not far and a traversal of the inner city by foot can be easily done within 25 minutes.

Stuttgart is quite safe. Even at night one may walk alone through the city without fear. One rare exception is the central city park, which should be avoided during late night hours. Of course, always use common sense when walking in a foreign city at night. The biggest danger for a pedestrian in Stuttgart is probably the cars.

To get a sense for the inner city, you should get to know following streets and places:

Biking

Biking in Stuttgart is not recommended for the city lies in a basin of a hilly region. There is a lot of car traffic, and routes for bikes are not well developed. Biking in the outlying areas of Stuttgart is very nice. Stuttgart is one of the greenest urban areas in Europe. There are many paths through the surrounding forests which are in very good shape.

By car

If you intend to drive by car inside Stuttgart, the only possibility to park are parking blocks at about 1,50 EUR per hour. Some parking blocks are closed during late night, providing no way of getting your car out. The street layout and numerous tunnels in Stuttgart can be confusing for tourists. Driving by car is not recommended.

Car drivers should know following ring and how to get there and off again, if trying to master an inner city ride.

--- Theodor-Heuss-Str. --- Friedrichsstr --- | | Paulinenstr Schillerstr (Hauptbahnhof) | | --- Holzstr------ Konrad-Adenauer-Str ------

By Taxi

Taxis are expensive. For 10 EUR you will get about 4 minutes of a taxi drive. With two or more people, getting a taxi together at night (when public transportation has stopped) can make sense.

Call a taxi in Stuttgart: Phone Nr. 0711/566061 - Taxi-Auto-Zentrale Stuttgart

Comments

The first thing you want to have when arriving: a city maps featuring a picture that shows an abstract layout of the routes in public transportation (rail network). This inventory will give you independence. (You'll get such a map for example in small stores at the train main station near the platforms and probably at most fueling stations, too.)

See

Museums

Zoo

Definitely a go for families. But watching monkeys and weird flowers in this old place can be fun for young adults, too. (Unless you feel pity for the locked up creatures.)

Planetarium

Buildings

Stuttgart used to be an impressive town but was hugely destroyed during World War II and only few buildings were rebuilt to classical glance. The 50's still were post-war, in the 60's and 70's architectural things didn't care at all and in the 80's and 90's with major insurance companies and banks building monuments of bad taste in the inner city, the aesthetic situation wasn't really improving.

Here are some of the exceptions:

Squares

Do

Arts and culture

Theater & Concert

Cinema

The entry fee will be about 7,- EUR per person.

Seasonal Festivals

Scenes & Underground

1. Nightclubbing & Bands

2. Small Art Galleries

3. People

Recreation

Travel and wander

Schedule at least a daytime for such action (plus prepare some equipment like maps, drinkwater, solid shoes, food, rain-countermeasures, warm clothing during cold seasons, etc.! And no, sport shoes may not be appropriate.) You may want to contact a local tourist office for guidance.

Sports

Spectate

Buy

Shopping around the Königsstrasse

The main shopping street in Stuttgart is the Königsstrasse which starts at the main railway station. Left and right of Köngigsstrasse are interesting shops, too, but Königstrasse is a good startpoint for navigation in the inner city.

Big shopping malls

Clothing

Technical stores

Music stores

Food markets

Food stores

Messe Stuttgart (trade fairs)

Still located few kilometers away from the main train station on a hill called 'Killesberg' on the top of Stuttgart.

Homepage: http://www.messe-stuttgart.de/index_engl.HTM

(At the time of writing, a new and bigger trade fair is build near the airport outside of Stuttgart and will in some time be used instead.)

Consumer exhibitions

Some of the consumer exhibitions of the Messe Stuttgart can be entertaining and educative. I would name:

Eat

Fast Food

Restaurants

Canteens

Canteens fit the gap between fast food and a common restaurant. Canteens serve somewhat richer meal at medium prices. Most canteens have a busy ambience.

Breakfast

In the morning, locals definitely want to get some fresh bread (and brezels and buns) from the baker's shop and serve them with butter, cheese, ham, honey, jam and eggs from the fridge.

Orange juice together with coffee or tea or hot chocolate will fit nicely.

The breakfast in hotels will also look more or less that way.

You can also order this breakfast setup in some or the other cafe or pub, but you'd have to know the good places at first, if you don't wanna end up with a poor dish.

Drink

Nice places to hang loose

Sleep

Splurge

Communicate

Phone

Net

Get out

By train

For connections and timetables see webpages of Deutsche Bahn AG.

For connections to nearer cities in the area which may be worth a visit (e.g. Esslingen, Ludwigsburg with their historic centres), you may also try the "S-Bahn" commuter trains which will take you there and back at least every half an hour. See Public transportation above for more information and timetable links.

Fast inner-German connections

From main station Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof:

Fast European connections

From main station Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof:

This text of this article is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0. It has been slightly modified to fit the general design of this website. The authors of this document are Andrew Haggard, Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel, Cosma Ioan, Evan Prodromou, John White, Paul N. Richter, Ryan Holliday, Wikitravel user Chrisg, Wikitravel user Daniel Wimpff, Wikitravel user Lalaka and the following WikiTravel users: AYArktos, Akubra, Brendio, Cjensen, Dawnview, Ilkirk, Kingjeff, Maj, Nikita_Borisov, Nzpcmad, Ravikiran_r. The original version of this article can be seen at http://wikitravel.org/en/Stuttgart.