Romantic Road on/off bus - Germany

I guess you mean Frankfurt am Main to Füssen!
The Romantic Road (German: Romantische Straße) does not start at Frankfurt am Main, it start at Würzburg. Click here for map.

The road itself is not very romantic. It isn't even one through road, it is a chain of local roads connecting the various towns. What is romantic and scenic are the towns along the road.

I think there is more than one company doing this. If you Google "bus Romantische Strasse" you will get lots of hits to investigate.

The actual Romantic Road does go from Würzburg, but the Romantic Road Coach, the only bus tour of which I am aware, starts in Frankfurt. However, you don't have to start in Frankfurt, you can start and end anywhere along the route. Prices to/from are shown on this brochure. The brochure also indicates you can make multiple "stops" (hop on/off), but if you want reserved seats you should book each leg separately.

Having done the entire Romantic Road by public transportation (Bahn and regional buses) ten years ago, I would suggest that the most important cities in which to spend more time than the one-day bus schedule allows are Rothenburg and Nördlingen.

I would use the train system to visit towns on the Romantic Road. You won't see every RR town - not all have train stations - but you don't really need to. There are many equally good towns left and right of the RR that in their unruly way failed to line up properly when tourist authorities invented the Romantic Road, towns that you will miss if you use only that bus. Yes, bus, singular. One bus per day in each direction?? What kind of service is that? Tomorrow, there are 17 different train departures between 4:45 am and 22:06 for leaving Rothenburg and getting to Würzburg, just for example. The other problem with the RR bus are the very short stops it makes. So you might have a few minutes in Town X - the only alternative being to stay all night and wait for the next day's RR bus.

You can use this map of Bavarian train lines to find Romantic Road towns with train stations - and all kinds of other good destinations in Bavaria as well.

WOW !! thank you everyone for your reply.
This is an economical way to travel between the towns and stop for an overnight as I am planning. And yes, I meant Fussen - I am just starting to plan this trip and my skills on spelling and pronouncing the names of the towns is very poor right now.
I am flying into Frankfurt and meeting up with friends in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and wanted to head south so I think this is the best option for me.
Again - thank you
Monica

It is possible to fly into Frankfurt and go straight to Rothenburg, and we've done that on occasion. But do consider a stop in Wurzburg for at least one full day -- your time line permitting of course. It's an outstanding place to visit and is not that far from Rothenburg. Google it and see what you think. You can easily take the train from Frankfurt to Wurzburg. A local train with only one change can be taken from there to Rothenburg to meet your friends.

Between Würzburg and Rothenburg, the Romantic Road goes through two towns that I found to be of interest. Bad Mergentheim has the Castle of the Teutonic Knight. Weikersheim has a palace with a big garden. Würzburg, Bad Mergentheim, and Weikersheim are all connected by rail; between Weikersheim and Rothenburg there are only multiple bus connections.

From Rothenburg to Nördlingen, including Dinkelsbühl, the route of the Road is only accessible by bus. South from Nördlingen, you can go by rail through most towns, Harburg, Donauwörth, and Augsburg, to Landsberg am Lech. From Landsberg to Füssen, again, it is all by bus. You could use the Romantic Road coach for these bus segments, but I was able to put together regional bus lines. The regional buses run multiple times per day.

Thank you everyone !! more ideas to ponder. Since I will be traveling alone - these added ideas will help me :)
I have about 10 days before I head to Croatia ( that is another day's project to figure out ). So I think I can visit the towns mentioned.
Monica

traveling solo and comparison cost of the bus vs renting a car.

Every trip I've made since about 2004 (6), I've compared rail prices from the Bahn to a rental car with gas (ViaMichelin). I've never found a rental car to be competitive with the Bahn. Most of these trips were solo, but two were also with my partner.

In 2007, I did most of the RR by public transportation - bus from Wieskirche to Landsberg, rail from Landsberg to Nördlingen, bus from Nördlingen to Rothenburg, then bus from Rothenburg to Weikersheim, and rail from Weikersheim to Würzburg. I started in Wieskirche instead of Füssen because I had already been to Füssen several times.

I spent most of five days on the Road, most of my time in the various towns on the Road. For instance, the day I went from Nördlingen to Feuchtwangen, I stayed in Nördlingen until after lunch, exploring the town and climbing the church tower. After lunch I took a local bus 55 minutes to Dinklesbühl where I spent something like 3½ hours exploring, then went on 20 minutes by bus to Feuchtwangen, where I spent the night and explored. So all in all, I spent something like 1h15 traveling and the rest of the day exploring three towns.

The entire trip, including Rothenurg to Würzburg via Bad Mergentheim, cost me 67 euro. Today, using up-to-date fares from the Bahn website and adding 50% to the bus fares, it would still cost about 92 euro. Two of those days were using Bayern-Tickets, which today costs 25 euro for the first person, but only 6 euro each for up to 4 more people, so saving 38 euro per extra person for those two days.

The important thing is don't try to do it all in one day. That would entail a lot of travel with not much time, if any, in the towns that make the Road worth seeing. The road itself is not that interesting; it's the towns.

Since the Romantic Road coach only runs once a day, each stopover has to be 24 hours and will add a day to the travel.

What I might suggest, instead, take the RR coach from Rothenburg to Nördlingen. The coach leaves Rothenburg around 1 pm and gets to Nördlingen about 3:30 with a half hour stop in Dinkelsbühl. The price for the coach is 13 euro per person. If you want to spend more time in Dinkelsbühl, book the RR coach only to Dinkelsbühl (11 euro, arr. 14:20) and take a later bus to Nördlingen. There is one at 17:24 (arr 18:11).

Spend two nights in Nördlingen. For the day in between the nights, make a 20 minute side trip to Harburg to visit the castle there. The rail fare between Nördlingen and Harburg is a little less than 5 euro per person each way, about 10 euro round trip. I suggest a side trip to Harburg because you can keep your luggage in Nördlingen. There are no lockers in the station at Harburg and no public transportation, and it's about a km walk (mostly level, not bad) from the Bhf into town.

Between Nördlingen and Landsberg, go by rail. There are a number of important towns, namely Donauwörth and Augsburg. You can probably do it in one day; there is only about 2½ hours of actual travel. You can use an Allgäu-Schwaben-Ticket for 22 euro first person, 6 euro each additional. It allows you unlimited all-day (hop on/off) travel.

The RR coach leaves Landsberg around 6:30 pm and gets into Füssen around 8:30. If you don't want to wait that late, you can take the train around that section in about 1½ hour. I didn't find much on the Road worth taking the bus. For one person use a P-P ticket for 17,80 euro, for more than one, use the Allgäu-Schwaben-Ticket.

Wow !! you are a wealth of great information. I really appreciate the details and I may just do the RR the way you suggest. I do want to visit several of those towns mentioned and the on/off bus doesn't give me the flexibility as what you suggest. Thank you so much for this.

Are your friends going south with you from Rothenburg, or are you doing all of this on your own?

You will find that the Bahn schedule webpage is a very important tool for finding bus as well as train schedules.

For example, put in Rothenburg as the "From". It will offer you a pulldown with various stops and stations. Select "Rothenburg ob der Tauber". Then put in Noerdlingen as "To" and select "Busbahnhof Nördlingen" from the options. Note: I used oe for ö, which is entirely acceptable and recognized by the Bahn. Put in a date and 900 for 9:00. Click on "Change other data" and put in Dinkelsbuehl for the intermediate stop. Again it will give you options; choose "Dinkelsbühl Bf". Make the time 300 for 3 hours.

The results will be a chain of four buses, three to get to Dinkelsbühl, with changes in Dombühl and Feuchtwangen, and one from Dinkelsbühl to Nördlingen. You will have a 30 minute change in Dombühl and another at Mooswiese, Feuchtwangen. The change in Feuchtwangen might just be a stopover on the same bus; ask the driver.

That doesn't get you the fares, but I went to www.vgn.de (Greater Nürnberg), which controls the buses from Rothenburg to Dinkelsbühl, and got a fare of 9,52€ one way adult for as far as Dinkelsbühl. Tell the driver in Rothenburg that you want to go to Nördlingen with a stop in Dinkelsbühl, and he will probably ticket you all the way through for a little more then 9,52.

Tell the driver in Rothenburg that you want to go to Nördlingen with a stop in Dinkelsbühl, and he will probably ticket you all the way through for a little more then 9,52.

I'm afraid he won't be able to do that since Nördlingen is way outside the VGN area. Please note that public transport between Rothenburg and Dinkelsbühl is slow (there is almost always a 25+ min overlay in Dombühl - consider taking the RR coach for that leg as suggested by @Lee) and public transport between Dinkelsbühl and Nördlingen is poor (seven direct buses per day, two of them on school days only; those are marked in the time table by a "S"). So it needs some planning.

From Landsberg to Füssen, again, it is all by bus.

You could do that leg by bus two or three times per day but it would take almost three hours. The regular connection is by train (at least one per hour in 1:30 to 1:45) with two easy transfers at Kaufering and Buchloe.

Lee - my friends are going to Switzerland and I will be going alone but meeting up with other friends after the RR in Munich.
I can't believe all the replies and great information - the details are so appreciated.

I am still waiting to hear from 3 others about joining me on this adventure and having this information will help no matter if they come along or not.