Trip report: from Würzburg, to Rothenburg, to Füssen - the Romantic Road

I see you skipped Augsburg. We lived there for four years and loved it.

confuso, thanks for your report! And no need to worry about skipping any towns. It's your trip and you get to decide where you want to go. It sounds like you had a really lovely time!

Yes, we missed many cities and it was a hard decision. But we'll be back to Germany some day (especially after we retire), so there will be plenty of opportunities to visit them.

Some things to add: it was way easier to drive in Germany than I thought. Most cities have a parking place just outside (usually you have to pay, and there are apps for that). The only thing that made me crazy were the "default" speed limits: in general, if you are in the city, speed defaults to 50km/h unless they have 30 or other zones (in which case when the 30 km/h zone ends, it defaults back to 50), and if the city limits ends it defaults to 100km/h unless they have areas of 70 or 80 km/h. Madness!

They do love their bike lanes but often they're hard to notice. Sometimes they're on the sidewalk and there are no clear signs they're a bike lane - they're so subtle! And the cyclists will let you know in so many words that you should not be there.

We also ended up in the middle of Spring fest in Munich which is like a mini Oktoberfest - so of course we went there to have a beer even though we're not beer drinkers. We saw a funny sight where teenagers were drinking and smoking while leaning on police cars.

Thank you for your trip report.

Good to read you enjoyed the daytour from Füssen.

Keep on traveling

Ha, yes, I've driven in Germany twice and I remember those speed limits. But Germany is a lot easier than driving in parts of Scotland and England. At least you don't have those single-track roads. :-)

Thanks for the trip report! Glad you enjoyed your trip.

What a fun time you had! Both on your own and on the RS tour.

"First, our flight changed and we had to land in Munich. But we took a train to Würzburg."

Was your flight change a few months before your flight or was it at the time? IF it was at the time, that's why most of us recommend not scheduling closely after an International Flight. I'm glad you were able to switch things around with the car rental.

Thanks so much for taking the time to post!

Actually, we bought the flights super early so when the airline made some changes we did not like, we called and got a better arrival time - this is what we originally wanted, but it was more expensive; luckily when the airline changed their flights, they agreed to move us to the flights we wanted without extra charge.

Our rental car was in Würzburg anyway three days later, so arriving at 5pm in Munich was better than arriving at 10pm in Frankfurt.

Thanks for sharing the summary! How was the rental car experience? Easy? Expensive?

Car rental was super easy but expensive. It would have been much cheaper to take the trains. But I think it was worth it especially because the drive through the Alps from Füssen after snow had fallen the days before.

Ah you saw Fruhlingfest too! So many tourists don't know there's calmer and less crazy celebration in the spring. I loved it.

Seems like you had the same colder weather as I did last year. Butt on the other hand, less tourists around. And we had poor rain last April throughout my trip to Germany. I have a lot of pictures of Germans in their helmets and their ponchos cycling through the rain.

Speaking of bike lanes, you can usually tell the difference in that many times the pedestrian section has stone tiles and the bike section is smooth. And yes, it is up to the pedestrian to know which side to walk. If you get hit in the bike lane, the blame will be on you because you were in the bike path.

One more thing: we started our road trip on a Monday (going to Rothenburg) and the cities were completely empty! It felt we had them just for ourselves. Our pictures are unbelievable. In our social media, we joked they closed the city just for us and some people actually believed it. Rothenburg was not that crowded as well, and (maybe because of the cold) the cities on the way down to Füssen were also almost empty.