Baden-Württemberg family holidays and breaks

Located in the border triangle of Germany with France and Switzerland, Baden-Württemberg is a great place for low-key, relatively inexpensive family holidays, especially if you love the great outdoors – this is home to the Black Forest and also to part of Lake Constance, shimmering beneath the impressive panorama of the Alps. Sailing, hiking, fishing, cycling and archery are all readily available, and there are castles galore, vineyards, orchards and forests where you can let imagination and children run free. If all that fresh air gets too much, you can turn to Germany’s biggest theme park for help, or explore historic, vibrant Stuttgart (the capital), Freiburg, Heidelberg and Tübingen. 

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Today

24°C
76°F

Flying Time	1.5 hours
Carbon Footprint	0.73 tonnes CO2
Timezone	GMT +1
Local Currency	Euro

What to do

Explore the Black Forest or Schwarzwald with its half-timbered houses, beautiful hiking paths and first-class ski areas. Enzklösterle is a good ski resort, while in summer it boasts the longest, fastest high-grade steel toboggan run in Germany.

Take a drive along one of the region's many scenic roads, including the ' Fantastic Road', 'German Clock Road' and 'Castle Road'. Germany is full of castles and it's easy to get blasé about them, but some are a cut above the rest,including that of Heidelberg.

Enjoy swimming and other watersports in or on Lake Constance (the Bodensee), or fly over it in a Zeppelin. The university town of Konstanz at its western end is home to a Sea Life aquarium.

Discover Stuttgart, home of Porsche and Mercedes Benz, with car museums, the Carl-Zeiss Planetarium (in the Schlossgarten park) and Germany’s only zoological-botanical garden, Wilhelma.

Real petrol heads should aim for Hockenheim and the Formula 1 Motor Sports Museum, with enough toys to keep big and small car fanatics alike happy. 

For themepark thrills, head to Europa Park in Rust, which comes complete with its own hotels.

Where to stay

See the booking specials in the right-hand column of this page.

When

Baden-Württemberg is a year-round family holiday destination: in winter it has some of the best ski areas in Germany, while in summer there's extensive hiking, biking, swimming and other sports.

How

There are many direct flights from the UK to Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Friedrichshafen near Lake Constance.The airports are well served by public transport and taxis. See our flight deals and car-hire pages.

With Eurostar and the ICE (Inter City Express – the fastest train in Germany) you can travel from London to Stuttgart in about 8hrs.

Eat

Maultaschen, a sort of oversized ravioli filled with minced and smoked meat, spinach and breadcrumbs and served sliced and fried in a pan with scrambled eggs, simmered in a vegetable broth, or dressed with butter and onions and served with a potato salad, is a speciality of the region, but its best-known product is the world-famous Black Forest Gateau.

Cost

Baden-Württemberg is a good-value family holiday destination provided you avoid the German school summer holidays (staggered from beginning of July to mid September), when prices are much higher.

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