Your first question might be: where in the world is Eutingen im Gäu?
To clear things up, Eutingen is located within the Gäu region of Baden-Württemberg. Not to mention, that it still lies within the Metropolitan region of Stuttgart; and easily reached from the city by Regional Express trains.
This part of the Neckar Valley is quite a splendid place to be, where you’re able to do everything from taking a hot air balloon ride, to hiking and biking.
As pretty as the place is from the air, I preferred to keep my feet on terra firma — choosing to following along the Natur-historischer Wanderweg Eutinger Tal, a Nature Historic Trail of 12 stations.
That was until I heard about the bats.
For those of you who aren’t freaked out from too many horror movies, this trail takes you along old beer cellars (Station #3 of the route), which were carved right into the rock. Today we have fridges to keep our beer cold, so the bats took up residence in former beer coolers.
Station #2 of the hiking route is about butterflies, a less creepy portion of the route, wouldn’t you say? What’s amazing is some thirty different species of the butterfly have been found here, so get your butterfly bingo card ready — and start crossing off the ones you find.
The Romans even have their own place, Station #12. Back in the 19th century they found what’s known today as the Villa Rustica, built here by the Romans around 100 A.D.
Darn, that makes the ruins of Burg Eutingertal seem quite young — this particular castle wasn’t built for like another 1100 years.
With all these hiking trails I didn’t have time for the bike trail, but there’s an extensive network of them — and you’ll also find all sorts of information on camping in the region, too.
You might not get too much time to bike or hike if you’re here for one of Eutingen’s festivals. I’ll say the Bockfierfest & Parade is one of the best, as is the Christmas Market and its Krämermarkt (held the 4th Tuesday of February and the first Tuesday of October).
Yeah, who knew what the Gäu region is and where it lies — but once you locate the town you’ll be forever pleased you got here in the first place.
