Romantic Road - in 2 days by car or public transport?

You cannot do the entire romantic road by public transport. Well, there is the so called Romantic Road Bus, but it's stops in the single towns are way too short to give you the opportunity of exploring the towns sufficently. Besides, the road itself is not that "romantic" in contrast to the towns along it. If I did that trip I'd like to see at least Landsberg am Lech, Augsburg, Nördlingen, Dinkelsbühl, Rothenburg, and Würzburg. While access to Landsberg, Augsburg, and Würzburg by train is easy, Nördling requires a detour from the main line, Dinkelsbühl is inaccessible, and Rothenburg requires a rather long detour via Ansbach / Steinach. Besides, having a car would give you access to a couple of delightful minor places to the east or west of the RR like (from south to nord) the Wieskirche, Diessen am Ammersee, Dillingen an der Donau, Neresheim, Öttingen, Schillingsfürst, Ochsenfurt, Marktbreit, Iphofen. In my view a selection of those minor places, worth an one or two hours stop, would contribute much to the pleasure of doing that tour.

"...we have 2 days for this (fussen+romantic road towns)."

The Romantic Road itself isn't all that important or scenic - but it is a very catchy marketing phrase that is irresistible to many. There are some nice old towns there - but there are nice old towns elsewhere too, as sla019 points out. Just look at Iphofen.

You have set aside only 2 days, one of them for Füssen alone. So on Day 2, all you really have time for anyway is to travel straight to Rothenburg. Breakfast, packing up, checking out, the trip itself, and checking into your R'burg hotel will require half half a day. Then you have half a day to see Rothenburg.

Besides the expense... the picking up, the dropping off, and gassing up a car for this one day would cost you unnecessary time. Just take the train to Rothenburg.

If by some miracle you achieve some more time for this area, you have some good choices.
View of Würzburg (RR town) from the fortress
Bad Windsheim's excellent open-land museum
Ochsenfurt and Marktbreit (mentioned by sla019.)

But you could just visit these places after Rothenburg. They are very close. And they are all connected by train routes and train stations - no need for a car.

The Bavaria Ticket is valid to all the destinations named above and a very handy tool in your travel kit. You can buy it on the day of travel at the station ticket machines in Munich, Füssen, and the other towns too.

You cannot do the entire romantic road by public transport.

Sorry, SLA, you are wrong. I did the entire Romanic Road by public transportation in October, 2007. I imagine it is still possible. Some sections, Landsberg to Nördlingen and Rothenburg to Weikersheim, and Bad Mergentheim were by train, the rest was by bus.

I also spent most of my time in the towns, only making jumps by train or bus a few hours a day. The trip took me about 4½ days, including time in towns.

But realistically, traveling the entire Romanic Road would be unnecessarily time consuming. Take the train from Füssem to Nördlingen. You might want to stop in Augsburg or Landsberg. While in Nördlingen, take a side trip to Harburg. Then go from Nördlingen to Würzburg by train with a stop in Rothenburg.

Sorry, SLA, you are wrong. I did the entire Romanic Road by public transportation in October, 2007.

OK, you can do it somehow if you have lots of time and are willing to accept unpleasant detours. But while public transport in the southern segment from Füssen to Nördlingen is unproblematic it's getting poor between Nördlingen and Dinkelsbühl and between Dinkelsbühl and Rothenburg, and it's almost inexistent between Rothenburg and Weikersheim / Bad Mergentheim. The Nördlingen - Dinkelsbühl leg is served by four direct buses a day, two of them transporting hords of noisy school children. Going from Dinkelsbühl to Rothenburg, a distance of 40km or 25 min. by car, in most cases implies a big detour by bus and train via Ansbach and Steinach - approx 90km in 2:11 and bypassing the delightful baroque castle of Schillingsfürst. Getting from Rothenburg to Weikersheim means almost always (with two exceptions a day) leaving the lovely Tauber valley - the only leg of the »Romantic Road« where it is really romantic - and doing a big and time consuming detour either by train via Würzburg or by bus and train via Schrozberg on the Crailsheim - Würzburg / Aschaffenburg line.

So, as a rule the average traveller will not be able to follow the RR by public transport on its northern leg. Mostly he will have to leave out Dinkelsbühl, Schillingsfürst, Creglingen (where he will miss the best preserved work by Tilman Rimenschneider, much better than the main altar of St Jacob's in Rothenburg) and often Weikersheim / Mergentheim as well.

That's a very annoying situation. It's partly due to the fact that the northern leg of the RR meanders between Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, i.e. between the area of responsibility of two different transport authorities, and partly to the fact that, understandably, the VGN has no inclination to take over traffic that should be taken care for by the DB, which after the closure of the Nördlingen - Dombühl - Rothenburg rail lines simply has refused to provide an adequate replacement by buses. The Dombühl - Dinkelsbühl line will be reactivated in the near future, but according to the BEG (Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft) there are no prospects for the Nördlingen - Dinkelsbühl leg.

In 2007, I left Feuchtwangen by bus at around 10 or 11 AM, after a leisurely breakfast, changed (20 min) in Dombühl, and arrived in Rothenburg for lunch. After lunch I went by bus to Weikersheim with a change in Creglingen of about 20-30 minutes. Total time was about 4 or 5 hours. I didn't have much time to see Creglingen, one of the towns on the Romantic Road.

Today the same connection is for 42 minutes in Rothenburg and almost 3 hours in Creglingen. Well, there is the Fingerhut (thimble) museum in Creglingen, about ¾ mile from the bus exchange point.

At that time there was rail service for the short distance between Weikersheim and Bad Mergentheim, but I don't see it anymore.

Lee, the Weikersheim - Bad Mergentheim line is well and alive. For an overview see the timetable for line nr 782 here.

Generally speaking, minor lines haven't been under threat of closing down any more since the single states started to pay annual flat rates to the respective operators. On the contrary, there is a trend to re-open closed lines, the most successful example being a line with the funny name »Oberschwäbische Geißbockbahn« (translation, please) north of Lake Constance, which presently carries over 500% more passengers than predicted before it's reopening, the most recent example is the Gottezell-Viechtach line, a branch terminal line off the Plattling - Bayerisch Eisenstein (-Prague) line. A very different matter are bus lines, which open, close, and modify all the time.

Creglingen, btw, has a rather interesting Jewish Museum, which is supervised by the American Obermeyer Foundation