Having arrived in Stuttgart over an hour later than planned onboard an TGV service from Paris, I was immediately confronted by the giant building site that is Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof as is undergoes transformation through the ‘Stuttgart 21’ project. Unfortunately, this means that there is a very limited concourse area at the end of the platforms, and it is a 10 or so minute walk around the edge of the building site to reach the S-bahn station. Whilst it seems the works will greatly improve the station, both operationally and from the passenger point of view, the current arrangement really isn’t giving the greatest first impression of the city.

This blog covers the second half of our time staying in Munich back in November 2025. Part 1 ended with us having spent the morning of day two enjoying a couple of the City Sightseeing bus tours and so part 2 starts with us heading to find some lunch. Our destination had been somewhere we had spotted whilst on the Schwabing bus tour, the Park Café in Munich’s Old Botanical Gardens, which was about a five-minute walk from where the bus tours start and finish outside the Hauptbahnhof.

Having arrived in Munich late the night before, it was nice to be able to wake up in the city rather than at an airport hotel ready for an early flight. The first thing on our plan for our stay was to join a free walking tour, as these are a great way to see the sights and learn some of a city’s history. And so, after a bit of a lie in, we made the 15-minute walk into the city centre to Marienplatz to find some breakfast and join the tour we had booked.

With our base for the second half of our holiday in Germany being the town of Hildesheim, located around 30km to the south-east of Hannover, it would have been remiss of us to not spend at least one day exploring the capital of Lower Saxony. With two S-bahn lines and a regional train service connecting Hildesheim to Hannover, it’s a quick 30-minute train ride to the heart of Hannover city centre. From Hannover Hbf it’s easy to get around the city, with connections to the city’s U-bahn as well as being just a short walk from many of the sights.

Hamburg is one of my favourite cities in Europe and so when I had the opportunity to visit it again as a day trip during our holiday in Germany back in September, I wasn’t going to turn it down. Whilst I arrived in the city pretty much on time onboard a DB ICE service from Hannover Messe, the timings didn’t realistically work for me to make it over to the Rathaus in time for an 1100 walking tour. However, there’s still plenty to see and do in the city and so I started my day by heading outside and jumping on one of the sightseeing bus tours.

Our base for the second half of our holiday in Germany was the Lower Saxony town of Hildesheim and whilst the town had a good bit of history and culture of its own to explore, its location also provided a great opportunity for some easy day trips elsewhere. One day, whilst I headed off to Hamburg (read about that in a couple of weeks), the rest of the group headed to the town of Wolfenbüttle which is known for having the largest collection of timber framed buildings in Germany and is somewhere I’d like to check out in future based on their reviews. However, we also did two day trips as a full group, one to the nearby city of Baunschweig and another to the town of Wernigerode in neighbouring Saxony-Anhalt.