A paradise for old women? For adrenaline junkies? Or for wine fans? There are probably few places where everyone can really be happy. Tripsdrill is such a place – just outside Stuttgart.
On this autumn Sunday at 9 a.m., cars are already filling the parking lot quite nicely. Most of them seem not to be here for the first time. The groups of visitors, many of them families, spread out from the entrance in all directions of the adventure park. In the morning you don't have to queue anywhere, free ride on more than a hundred rides.
We start small: spinning giggling in coffee cups, curving in wine buckets through the Merry Vineyard with old vines and letting the centipede hurl us around the "Michaelsberg".
Lemberger& Co. from the Michaelsberg Cleebronn
The real Michaelsberg vineyard is located right next to the adventure park. Here grow Wurttemberger grapes such as Trollinger, Lemberger or Muskattrollinger, but also Riesling and Black Riesling. The Riesling berries shine greenish-yellow in the sun; the small dots on the skin make it easy to identify the variety.
Riesling is harvested late in the fall, when sweetness and acidity are best in balance. Already now the berries taste wonderfully sweet and juicy. A few rows of vines further on hang plump trolling grapes, whose color changes from purple to lilac to dark blue.
Part of the philosophy of Tripsdrill is to combine tradition and fun. You can experience this especially well in and around the Vinarium, where the wine history of the Zabergau comes alive. The open-air museum in the "Frohlicher Weinberg" with its reconstructed sheds is especially beautiful.
In the past, the Fischer family, who founded the adventure park in 1929 and are now the fourth generation to run it, also had their own vineyards in Michaelsberg. The wine is still served in the park gastronomy, but today the good drops come from the Storz winery and from the Cleebronn-Guglingen winegrowers, one of the best winegrowers' cooperatives in Germany. At a wine tasting in the Tripsdrill Vinarium you can see for yourself – with cheese and bread if desired.
Wine tasting in the Tripsdrill Vinarium
We meet employee Peter Notz in the wine cellar, who introduces us to some of the 30 wines and answers our questions with charm and expertise.
Great service: everyone can vary the tasting according to their taste, whether tasting dry or sweet wine. Children with us? They get delicious Dornfelder grape must – guaranteed promille-free. The tasting glass (unfortunately not optimal for tasting) everyone may take home as a souvenir.
After a short tour through the wine museum (yes, there is also one in the adventure park Tripsdrill) we now head for the big attractions of the park.
With Karacho through the adventure park Tripsdrill
Mammut is the name of the wooden roller coaster, which stands like a work of art in the landscape and can be seen from far away. As slowly as the wagons jerk up the first incline, you could easily underestimate them. But as soon as you reach the top of the hill, you're hurtling down at 80 km/h and around the curves at breakneck speed – including the typical jerks.
On with Karacho – the big roller coaster sister lives up to its name. Loops, screws, catapult launch … I pass and send my companions to the start. Of course they don't miss "the coolest attraction" and afterwards they rave about how smooth the ride was. From zero to one hundred in 1.6 seconds – and much too fast over. But the best is the beginning: Completely unexpectedly, the car races down the road – in the dark.
Coaster fans can rejoice, by the way, the next roller coasters are already being built. Whether this is a family boomerang coaster and a suspended thrill coaster, a newly developed suspended coaster (as relevant forums are currently speculating), is something the park wants to keep secret for a while though.
From homemade spaetzle to Maultaschenburgers
Time for a little break. The choice is plentiful: inn, castle tavern, factory kitchen and more. We decide on the Maultaschenburger in the Vespergarten, which was warmly recommended to us – ideal for the small hunger.
The food prices are family-friendly overall, no matter if down-to-earth home cooking or currywurst, fries and co. – Culinary everyone finds something suitable as well. Up to the hearty stop in the inn to the Altweibermuhle. There, where it all began.
As early as 1835, Friedrich Adam Fischer opened a garden restaurant at the foot of the Michaelsberg mountain. To this day, the food is cooked fresh every day, using regional ingredients as much as possible. Even the typical Swabian spaetzle are made by hand.
Off into the forest: Wildparadies Tripsdrill
If you want to escape the hustle and bustle, the Schnaufender Trullaner takes you to Wildparadies Tripsdrill in just a few minutes or a ten-minute walk. More than 50 animal species live on the 47-hectare site, including wolves and bears. If you want, you can also stay overnight at the nature resort – in the Tripsdrill tree house or in the cozy shepherd's caravan.
Where the funny name Tripsdrill comes from, no one can really say. The most beautiful version: According to linguists, this describes a place that doesn't exist at all. A place where curious things happen.
Speaking of the old mill, the historical core of Tripsdrill. The only promise that Tripsdrill does not keep: According to an old Swabian folk belief, women slip out of the mill a lot younger than they climb in. I tried it out (like probably every visitor) – it didn't work out. Nevertheless I had more than enough fun.