Wolfstein, Rhineland-Palatinate
Wolfstein was founded in 1275 on Habsburg King Rudolph I's orders, which called for a “fortified and free” town near his castle, “Woluisstein”, now known as the "Alt-Wolfstein" (“Old Wolfstein”) ruin. Rudolph forthwith granted the new town the same town rights and freedoms as the town of Speyer. As an “everlasting marketplace”, it was to be a sanctuary for commerce, trade and dealing. The first townsmen and -women came from the surrounding, much older villages.
Plochingen
For the first time Plochingen was mentioned in 1146 as "Blochingen" in a document of Conrad III of Germany. In Plochingen were two castles, but none of them are left. Plochingen was 1698 post station on the imperial post road from Antwerp to Venice. The Fils Valley Railway came 1846 up to Plochingen, only a year after in Württemberg the line between Cannstatt and Untertürkheim had been opened. The Swabian Jura Association (Schwäbischer Albverein) was founded in 1888 in the still existing restaurant Waldhorn. on 1 June 1913 a tornado destroyed numerous buildings in Plochingen. On April 13, 1948, the municipality of Plochingen became a town. On 12 July 1968, was the inauguration of the Neckar harbor Plochingen. Since the beginning of the S-Bahn Stuttgart traffic on 1 October 1978, the vehicles are technically maintained and cleaned in the depot Plochingen.
1998 Plochingen hosted the Landesgartenschau of Baden-Württemberg.Plochingen is one of the main stations on line one (S1) of the Stuttgart S-Bahn. The Fils Valley Railway, part of the connection from Stuttgart to Munich, runs through Plochingen, with the Neckar-Alb Railway to Tübingen starting here. The public transport here is good, so that even on weekends bus and train connections are very frequent.