one EE to an aspiring EE, you should spend at least part of a day in Stuttgart touring the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums. both of these companies are renowned for design. I was there last Sunday, and believe me you'd benefit from seeing them, especially the MB museum.

the train ride down from FRA Flughafen or Frankfurt hbf is fairly quick (1 - 2 hours, depending on connections). from Stuttgart hbf you can take the S Bahn metro to Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion (for MB museum) and Porscheplaatz (Neuwirtz?). I ended up wasting money on a cab to the former because I was running late and didn't have small enough bills for the S-bahn ticket vending machine . note to self: next time make sure have smaller bills and some 1-2 euro coins before leaving airport.

EE? Awesome!

Trust me, nothing would be better than visiting those two museums in Stuttgart and the BMW Museum in Munich...and going on a factory tour at one of those. Not only that, it would probably make my younger brother/Mechanical Engineering major/gearhead completely jealous of me.

Before I found out about Zugpsitze, I thought about swinging through Stuttgart on the way back to Frankfurt in order to visit one of the museums. Since visiting the mountain is still up in the air this leaves Stuttgart as a possibility. Besides, maybe it would be beneficial if I learned a thing or two about design.

BTW, didn’t Porsche very recently open a new museum in Stuttgart? I seem to recall reading that somewhere...

L�nder-Tickets are good on local trains only, so it might take (much) longer to get where you want to go. The "Single" tickets are for one person only. Still a bargain, considering regular train fares. More info in the L�nder-Tickets can be found here:
http://www.bahn.de/international/vie..._tickets.shtml
That site has links to other special fares as well.

http://www.porsche.com/germany/about...porschemuseum/

http://museum-mercedes-benz.com/

http://www.museum-mercedes-benz.com/?lang=en

I cant even think of an excuse as to why I didnt see that this morning...

Anyways, after looking to see if I could find a decent airfare to Munich from Paris....I just wound up buying a TGV/ICE itinerary. It's 6 hours long, but it is the best I could get at this point...

Also, just looking around but it appears there is an ICE train that runs from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Frankfurt, so if I were to go there, that would make things convienent...

Berto, my friend, you are way too ambitious. Chill, buddy!

If you want to do a lot of stuff the three car museums would actually fit the bill and still be do-able. There are good connections from Paris direct to Stuttgart, even ICE but also normal IC (unless they have cancelled that because there is the ICE now). There should also be some that leave rather late. I think you said there is a direct train to Munich now from Paris?

In any case, let's lay out an example. Leave Paris to STG in the evening. Stay in Stuttgart (cheaper than Paris and possibly cheaper than MUC) overnight. Enjoy some Maultaschen or Spaetzle for dinner. Yum!!! In the morning visit the MB and Porsche Museums. The Porsche one is breathtaking already from the outside. I drove by there not even three weeks ago and my heart almost stopped. The MB I've only seen on photos but it's very nice, too. You probably need a total time of around 6 hours for both incl. transit. Say you are done by 3pm. Take a train to Munich. Depending on when you arrive and the day of the week you might still be able to cram the BMW museum in there but I wouldn't try. Munich has art museums up the wazoo and they are all centrally located. The BMW museum isn't. So either take in one of their fabulous art museums (the Old Masters are particularly impressive) or just take a stroll to the wonderful city that Munich is. Hang out in a street cafe, practice your German with one of the pretty Dirndls and enjoy a good coffee or beer (obviously). In the evening you might go to a concert or clubbing. The scene is quite good, I hear. The next morning you have Weisswurst und Senf for breakfast and thusly strengthened you can face the BMW museum. If you had more time I could also imagine a visit to Schloss Nymphenburg but you probably need to get rolling back to Frankfurt.

I'd definitely spend the night from 14 to 15 Feb in FRA. You should be at the airport 90 minutes early for an international flight. It is a huge airport and things can go wrong.

Scrap the entire Garmisch, Zugspitze, Freiburg, Nuremberg deal. Too much time spent in transit. Freiburg is one of the most remote corners of Germany in terms of geographical position and thus it is a PITA to even go there, let alone get outta there to catch a flight. NUremberg is nice but not that nice. I'd spend a day in Dusseldorf any day over a day in Nuremberg or Freiburg.

The must see cities in Germany (besides some small medieval places) are in descending order:

1.Berlin
2.Munich
3.Hamburg
4.Dresden

5. ex aequo: STG, Heidelberg, Cologne, Bremen

6. ex aequo: Frankfurt and Dusseldorf though I'd give a slight notch to DUS

Somewhere in there Leipzig might find a place. And Hannover, too. Probably these are on par with Hannover. I might rank all of those at 7. Some people might dispute these also ran positions but hardly anyone is going to dispute the top four; maybe their order but not that those are the top four.

Of the medium and small cities don't forget Weimar (see Goethe again, and Schiller) and Lubeck, Bamberg and Rothenburg, Lindau, Meersburg.

Till

Berto, the Porsche museum is less than a month old. Benzguy80 and I were there last Sunday. Here are my pictures of the two museums. http://mobilebucky.smugmug.com/Travel/720366

As an mechanical engineer myself, I have to say visiting both museums in Stuttgart definitely highlights of my first trip to Germany.

Excellent photos. good job. Thanks for posting. I like the museum concept of the Porsche museum better where you can go up to each car. At the MB it looks like they are on a racetrack and you cannot go to each car. I hear at the Porsche museum they actually keep all cars in a ready-to-drive state, fueled and all. That's cool.

There really isn't any sense in taking the sleeper train from Frankfurt to Munich (it doesn't stop in Frankfurt anyhow; you have to go to Koblenz to catch the Amsterdam-Munich train (leaves Koblenz just after midnight, arrives Munich just before 8AM), since the ICE train takes just over 3 hours.
I think the area around Freiburg is beautiful, and you can get a cheap one-person ticket for all of Baden-Wuerttemberg for 18 Euros per day, IIFC. The Black forest, Kaiserstuhl, Basel, Stuttgart, the Neckar Valley, Heidelberg are all in B-W. From Frankfurt airport you just have to buy a cheap ticket to the B-W border and then use your Baden-Wuerttemberg-Ticket (available online). You could also take a day-trip to Strassbourg or Mulhouse from Fraiburg.

Since I booked my Paris-Munich ticket several days ago, at this point there is no changing the fact that I will be going to Munich before anywhere else. My only problem is that I am torn between going to the summit of Zugspitze and going to at least the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart (and by the way mobilebucky, those were some great pictures you posted of the museums). The problem for me, in terms of side destinations, is that in regards to Zugspitze it is essentially the anti-Florida....snow, elevation, etc and then the Porsche Museum from what I have seen appears to be one of the greatest collection of cars ever placed into a building.

It is true, that I would be wasting a lot of time in transit going to Zugspitze (I think DB states its a 3 hour ride from Munich Hbf to the summit), where as Stuttgart is in the direction of travel toward Frankfurt, so that can be accomplished fairly easily...the downside is that I would be leaving Munich earlier to ensure I would get a few hours at the musuem.

One of my options is to play it by year, but not having a rail pass like I did in Switzerland makes me slightly against this idea, since I would much rather pay 49EUR instead of 89EUR for a rail ticket.

Now I just need to sit back and do the tough work of deciding...luckily I do not have a midterm to study for this weekend...

We are flying into Frankfort in Sept but when we saw how close we were to Bastogne we decided to spend several days retracing my Dad's steps during the Battle of the Bulge and seeing a few Belgium breweries. Back to Frankfort and take the train to Garmisch where we always stay. We are doing day trips to Munich a couple of days for Oktoberfest but you will love Garmisch and because there is an Army base there and a Military resort you will find that most everyone speaks English. Do the Partnach Gorge walk by the old Olympic ski stadium, it is the best.
Munich is good but the smaller cities and villages are great. We live in Florida also!

So I think I am going to try to swing by the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart as I head back to Frankfurt. It looks like I will only be able to spend around 2 hours there given the train schedules and my schedule. I'll need a place to store my luggage at Stuttgart Hbf, wondering if it is lockers or if it is like the setup at Berlin Hbf. From what I can tell by the station layout is that it must be lockers and that they are located about everyother track. Is anyone able to verify this? Also, would there be an issue from taking a backpack into the musuem (regular everyday backpack)?

At this point on 3/14 I tentatively plan to take ICE Munich-Stuttgart, S-Bahn to Porscheplatz and back and then ICE to Frankfurt via Mannheim. DB prices this out all on one ticket, but I am curious how will the S-Bahn portions be handeled when I get my ticket? Are they ticketed like the rest of my legs or is it in the form of a city-mobil ticket or ??

Also, any recommendations for hotels near Frankfurt Hbf? Have a few in mind, but would'nt mind hearing what everyone might recommend...

As for heading to Garmisch/Zugspitze, I am going to leave that to be an open question to be setteled when I wake up on the 13th. If I get up early enough and the weather looks good, then more than likely I will head on down there and get back to Munich in the afternoon.

Every large train station has lockers. I can't recall exactly where they are at the Stuttgart station but there are lockers. Here is the floor plan of the Stuttgart station Floor plan Stuttgart main station

Berto, The weather is a big factor for doing things in Garmisch, have been there in March and there was so much snow. The Gorge is something you have to do when the weather is decent. The lifts to the Zugspitze don't run if weather is bad if I recall. You will like Stuttgart and Munich. Smart Car has their factory nearby Frankfort also.

If you purchase S-Bahn ticket along with your ICE ticket, all you need to do is show your online ticket to an agent if you run into one in S-Bahn (I did in Stuttgart). One thing with S-Bahn is they don't run as frequent on weekend than weekday, you might want to check and print out the online timetable at www.vvs.de.

I am not sure your schedule going to look like that day, but you can take and early train from Munich to Stuttgart and leave late afternoon (TGV Munich to Stuttgart, ICE Stuttgart-Frankfurt for 49 Euro 1st class) 6-7 hrs should be able to cover both museums. As for carry backpack to the museum, you should be fine, I carry mine along with Tripod to both museums. As a matter of fact, I saw a guy had a tripod with dolley in Mercedes Museum.