Black Forest and Romantic Road Without the Crowds!

Please get a map and consider how to arrange those destinations economically. Assuming that you have tow weeks and will fly into Frankfurt, I'd head south to the Black Forest first, then east alongside lake Constance (with an intermediate break at, say Überlingen or Lindau) to Füssen (castles), and from Füssen north on the so called Romantic Road via Landsberg and / or Augsburg - Nördlingen - Dinkelsbühl - Rothenburg o.d.T. and Würzburg back to Frankfurt. BTW, as said often, the romanticism of the RR consists in the small old World towns and not in the route itself. So there is no need to follow it meticulously; there are attractive towns in the adjacent regions too (e.g, Dillingen, Schwäbisch Gmünd and Schwäbisch Hall to the West, Neuburg an der Donau, Eichstätt, Weißenburg, Ellingen and Ansbach to the East). Happy planning!

Summer + Romantic Road + Neuschwanstein = crowds = tourist horde.

Black Forest is much less problematic in this regard - but you'll want to skip Titisee.

Have a look at some trip reports that include the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) at this page. Note that like some of the RR towns, some of the BF towns like Gengenbach and Villingen, partially retain their old town walls and towers.

The "Half-timbered House Route" towns on this map offer eye-popping old-world buildings in small towns and scenic places, including some in the Black Forest, and could easily eat up a week's time. I'd check them all out.

Note that you could visit a few of the RR towns just to the east of the map area - Nördlingen and Harburg are nice, smaller, less-touristed Romantic Road towns that would be easy to reach.

I wonder, would the Romantic Road get nearly as much attention if it was called the "Western Franconian- East Swabian- Allgäuer 17th Century Heritage Road?" or something similar?

Thanks to all for your help!