Ireland day 1576. Wednesday 21 January 2026- To Stuttgart

Today’s summary	Had breakfast and a quick swim in the Erding hotel pool then checked out and walked to the station. Took four trains over five hours to transfer myself from Erding via Stuttgart to Bad Wildbad, where I am staying for the next two nights. A thoroughly enjoyable journey and it all worked according to plan. Tonight’s hotel also has a pool and spa so I spent a couple of hours in the evening checking it out then had a video call to Val in Switzerland (all going well for her too) before finally going to bed after a long day.
Today’s weather	Cold clear and brilliantly sunny all day. No wind. minus 1c though a couple of degrees warmer in the Stuttgart area.

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Bad Wildbad

Commentary

Today was a day of trains, trains and more trains. Four in total, to be precise. I spent most of the daylight hours transferring myself and my bag from Erding, near Munich, to Bad Wildbad, near Stuttgart.

First things first though. I woke up early so was down to breakfast soon after the restaurant opened. That did give me time, though, to slot in an extra swim in the hotel pool before checking out at 11am and embarking on my trans-Germanic journey.

A quick walk down to Altenerding got me there with a few minutes to spare before the 11:20 arrived to take me to the Hauptbahnhof. Just long enough on the platform, in fact, to buy and download a ticket on the DB app.

Once in central Munich, I went to a nearby supermarket to get some snacks to eat on the next stage of the journey. I didn’t repeat yesterday’s mistake of going to the grease-sodden bistro kiosk on up by the platforms, though. I decided that the “Tegut” outlet in the subterranean shopping area beneath the station would be a safer bet.

Once I got up to concourse-level, the 13:02 ICE 564 train was waiting for me on Platform 12. We were soon on our way – I had decided to splash out and go first class but at €46 for the journey to Stuttgart it didn’t exactly break the bank.

Despite Deutsche Bahn’s recently poor reputation for huge delays, we arrived into Stuttgart two hours later and only about 10 minutes late, at just after 3pm. I had enough time, despite the delay, to make the connection onto my 1532 train to Pforzheim. Actually, I was quite glad not to have arrived in Stuttgart much earlier, because the station, a bit like Munich, is a rather bleak place and I wouldn’t have enjoyed waiting there long.

Eventually I made it to Pforzheim and from there I caught my fourth and final train – a local commuter shuttle to my final destination at Bad Wildbad. The train got me there in a little under an hour and I arrived exactly on time at 1651. And in case any readers should happen be interested in statistics, it was just 5 hours and 31 minutes since leaving on the S-Bahn train from Altenerding.

Despite the slightly convoluted journey, it all was to plan and all the connections went like clockwork. Along the way I got a glimpse, through my (slightly grubby) ICE train window, of the deep German rural landscape. Germany Profonde I guess you could call it – locked in its frosty winter slumber.

Bad Wildbad is in the heart of the Black Forest and is about 50 kilometres west of Stuttgart. My reason for coming is simply that I’ve never (knowingly) been to this part of the world before and I wanted to see what it was like.

The town itself is quaint in a typically rural German sort of way, though a bit rundown in parts. I’m staying in a spa hotel so of course hope to make full use of its facilities while I am here. Less than a hundred meters from my room, there’s a funicular railway which runs up to the top of a nearby hill. My map shows several paths leading away from the top-station and into the woodlands. So if time permits tomorrow I’ll go up and have a look around.

But let’s get back to the here-and-now. The hotel I’m staying in is modest in size and doesn’t have a restaurant. So, forearmed with this important fact, on the way from the train station to the hotel, I stopped off at the nearby Edeka supermarket to get some provisions for later in the evening.

Finally, I was checked in to the hotel and settled in my room. It’s almost scarily-quiet here. I’m not actually sure there’s anyone else in it at all, apart from me! But I put that to one side and wandered over to the pool and spa area, where there were plenty of people, and spent a couple of hours there relaxing after my long journey.

Back in my room later on, I had a quick video call with Val in Switzerland. I’m pleased to report that everything is going well over there too and she is enjoying her skiing very much. Then afterwards, I had my supermarket dinner. Tonight it was a chicken Caesar salad (saint) and some mini-doughnuts (sinner). Tasty and satisfying. I bought a beer to go with it, which made it doubly so.

Well it’s time to call it a day now I think. It’s been quite a long and tiring one – but very satisfying. I have decided that pottering about Europe by train is one of my very favourite of all things. Long may it continue!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


My S2-Bahn train makes its arrival in Munich this morning	Next on the tracks – the ICE [Inter City Express] train to Stuttgart. Very comfortable and quiet. I think there were only about five or six of us in my carriage

Stage 3 – the suburban train (on the left) from Stuttgart to Pforzheim	Final leg of the journey. My commuter train from Pforzheim to Bad Wildbad

Lunch in carriage 29, seat 52 this afternoon. Well – it was tasty and hot, if a little unstylish. Anyway it did the trick and met the immediate need for sustenance	In the bowels of Pforzheim station. “A bit bland” is probably the most charitable description you could give it

Cold and frosty in deepest Germany – somewhere along the line from Munich to Stuttgart