Day trip from Munich to Romantic Road/Harburg and Rothenburg

The Romantic Road, Harburg, and Rothenburg odT would be a nice trip, but I think doing it in one day would not be worth the price. I assume you are talking about the $82/person Viator tour (plus $5/person for Burg Harburg entrance and tour).

I'm always amused at the subterfuge that Viator uses to make their tours look like good deals. This is a perfect example. If one wanted to do a day trip for two just to Rothenburg, you could easily use a $42 (39€) 2 person Bayern-Ticket, leave Munich at 9:35, get to Rothenburg just before 1 pm, spend 5 hours in Rothenburg (more than the Viator tour does), and be back in Munich just after 9 pm, and you'd spend a lot less money To make their tour seem impossible to do on your own, they throw in what I consider an inadequate stop, timewise, at Burg Harburg.

I'm familiar with the Romantic Road, having done it on my own using public transportation (trains & buses) in 2007. I spent more than 1H15 at Harburg and then went on to spend the evening, overnight, and half of the next day in Nördlingen. I consider Nördlingen to be a better example of a town on the Romantic Road because it is much less touristy. It does lack a Christmas Shoppe and a Crime and Punishment Museum, neither of which I consider historically significant, but, like Rothenburg, it does have a complete wall with a Wehrgang you can walk on and a lot of old Fachwerk buildings. After Nördlingen, I went by bus to visit Dinkelsbühl, then went on to Feuchtwangen for the night. I could have gone on to Rothenburg for the night, but I wanted to see Feuchtwangen. The next morning I went by bus to Rothenburg.

Much as I enjoyed Burg Harburg, I really don't think it's worth over $130 more (for 2 people) just to spend 1:15 there.

Actually, you could leave Munich at 9:36, visit Harburg for several hours, then go to Nördlingen for almost 4 hours and be back to Munich before 8 pm, all by rail using a 36€ Allgäu-Schwaben-Ticket.

Of course, if you were already using a Deutschland-Ticket, all this extra rail transportation would be essentially free versus paying Viator to transport you.

Thank you very much for your information!