Germany

Sorry, Susan, there is no "romantic road". What did you expect, couple making love everywhere? The road itself is a winding, 2 lane country road with a 50 mph speed limit, choked with car, bus, truck, and farm equipment traffic. What is more interesting are the towns on the road (3, Schongau, Nördlingen, and Dinkelsbühl, with complete or almost complete walls; 2, Landsberg and Donauwörth with partially remaining walls; a palace, Weikersheim; and a castle, Harburg). If you are going to DO it, spend some time in the towns.

Like Steve, I spent 3 nights on the Road (at least between Füssen and Rothenburg), but in my case entirely with bus and train. I wouldn't try to do it in a day.

If there is one place I would spend a night it is in Nördlingen. You can go from Rothenburg to Nördlingen by bus, stopping at Dinkelsbühl. The next day go to, maybe, Donauwörth and Landsberg, then head south by the fastest route to Füssen. You can drive if you want, but that is not necessary and just costs more.

Ok now maybe I am second guessing doing it. Are there a few of the towns worth see and skipping the rest?

Hi Susan,

No, The Romantic Road is not romantic. We drove a good part of the "RR" in Oct. '07 and didn't find it "choked" with traffic. It's simply just another "secondary" road. Nothing special except for a few charming towns along it.

Now, along the RR we loved Rothenburg ob der Tauber. While it's "touristy", it's a beautiful old town in spite of this. I'd allow 2 nights for Rothenburg. Visit St. Jacobs church (amazing alter up a few stairs in the back), see the Crime and Punishment Museum, walk the wall in the am. or evening and take the informative and entertaining Nightwatchman's Tour (8pm).

www.nightwatchman.de

In the area is the Herrgottskirche in Creglingen, with an amazing 500 yr. old wood carved alter by Tilmann Riemanschneider (RS calls him the Michelangelo of German woodcarving). We also liked Dinkelsbuehl, but Rothenburg is tops in our opinion.

www.herrgottskirche.de

We have some photo's at:

www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/index.html

www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/travel15.html

For a place to stay near Rothenburg, we can recommend the Landgasthof zum Rappen in Creglingen/Schonach, less than 15 min. from Rothenburg. Very nice.

www.romanticroad.com/zumrappen/

Paul

I too found it less than choked. Lee, I know you are the resident expert on public transportation, and lots of german topics, but we really need a disclaimer next to your posts.

Thanks that is better I will take a second look at it.

I traveled large portions of the road (Wieskirche to Schongau and Nördlingen to Rothenburg) that were not connected directly by rail, by bus, so I got to see a lot of the road. Several times the bus got stuck behind a slow moving truck, and we also passed trucks going the other way with a line of cars behind them. At one point we got behind a tractor pulling a hay wagon and had to follow him at ~10 mph because there were too many cars coming the other way to pass. The posted speed limit is 80 kph (50 mph), so it you have visions of playing Grand Prix, forget it. And this was in mid-October (after Oktobefest), not prime summer tourism time.

We have visited Rothenburg at least a half dozen times and enjoyed every visit. It's much better to spend the night in Rothenburg so you can see the town after the tour buses leave for the day. Walk along the old wall, visit the lovely park and get off the beaten path to see some of the charming side streets of Rothenburg.

We have also spent time in Nordlingen, Dinkelsbuehl and Feuchtwangen and enjoyed them all.

In Lee's defense, I have seen it choked with traffic on two separate occassions. Agree with his assessment. The only portion that's really worth going out of your way to drive is southern terminus. The view of the Alps, Fuessen and Neuschwanstein is breath taking. The rest? About as scenic as any secondary road in Bavaria. Not bad, mind you, just nothing special.

I don't recommend spending a lot of time on the Romantic Road unless you are enjoying a very liesurely trip and just want to soak up some small towns. The towns along the Romantic Road are cute and fun, but the road itself can be very frustrating -- twisty, sometimes stop-and-go, potential of heavy traffic. To "do" the road you could spend one very full day like this:

Assuming a north-to-south route...

Start out early (7am), departing Rothenburg od Tauber, drive the ~40 minutes to Dinkelsbuhl where I would have breakfast, see exactly 1 tourist site, then rent a bicycle and enjoy this cute little "mini Rothenburg" for about an hour.

About 11am head on down the road the roughly 40 minutes to Nordlingen. Have lunch, do some shopping, climb the gothic church tower.

In the afternoon, maybe 4:30, head down the road about 90 minutes to Ottobeuren. See the Benedictine Abbey and have dinner.

Late evening, 9:00 or 9:30pm drive the last 45 minutes to Fussen. Spend the night in Fussen and start the day with Mad King Ludwig...

A very nice day can be spent stringing together 2 or 3 selected cities along the Road -- -- -- or you could easily spend 2-3 days in each of these towns (especially Ottobeuren in my opinion), but if you're just wanting to get a thorough 'taste' of the Romantic Road, 1 day is sufficient.

If you want to stay somewhere on the road, I would choose Ottobeuren.

Are you sure you mean Ottobeuren, just outside of Memmingen. It's not on the Romantic Road, not any where near it.

But this does prove the point. The best site on the Road (IYO) isn't on it. There are plenty of great places to visit in Gemany, you don't have to drive all day to visit them.

Lee -- Upon reconsidering, you are correct. This is the same Otobeuren just outside of Memmingen, and you are right that it is a full hour off the Romantic Road. My recommendation has you leave the Romantic Road about 30 minutes south of Nordlingen, taking a route that is a little more direct toward Fussen, stopping in Ottobeuren along the way.

I recall now how I came to find Ottobeuren... we had planned a Romantic Road drive, but didn't have anything on our 'must see' list south of Nordlingen. I mapped a route to Neushwanstein that made sense and just picked a small-ish town to stop in -- and loved it.

I guess my itinerary is, more accurately, on a Romantic-ish Road Partial Drive...

Ottobeuren must be a special place since Ryanair flies there (actually to Allgäu Airport, 7½ miles away).