Other Options for Romantic Road

"Highly recommended bus tour"? Not by me. The bus tour spends almost the entire time on the road, only stopping in most towns to pick up and let off passengers.

In Oct. '07 I spent almost 5 days touring the Romantic Road using public tranportation (trains and buses, mostly buses), staying in Oberammergau, Landsberg am Lech, Noerdlingen, Feuchtwangen, Laudenbach (Weikersheim), and Wuerzburg.

In my opinion, the two most important places are Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Fuessen. Most stops in between are pretty ordinary; Noerdlingen was, in my opinion, the best place for an intermediate stop. It is served by train. Dinkelsbuehl, which I didn't find as interesting as Noerdlingen, can be reached by bus from Noerdlingen.

South of Landsberg, I really didn't see anything worth seeing. I had scheduled an hour for Wieskirche. I spent 5 minutes seeing that it looked exactly like the pictures, then retired next door for an early lunch.

You can find schedules for the entire way on the German Rail website. Sometimes, you might have to suppress train travel under "modes of transport" in order to see bus schedules.

The best way to see the area is by rental car.

We are doing the same trip in May and plan on renting a car with an overnight stop in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. We'll pick up the car in Frankfurt and drop it off in Munich and hit some sights on and around, including Neuschweinstein Castle. Here is Rick's suggested driving itinerary: http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/germany/romantic_road.htm.

I'd be interested in reading the other suggestions you get as well.

I don't know how you elavuate "best". I was certainly able to see everything I wanted to see using public transportation. However, I saved over $200 for the week of travel vs a rental car. If that's not best, it's awfully good.

In August we did the exact opposite of what Maryam described, that is we picked up a car in Munich and dropped off in Frankfurt. It was a little less than 2 hours by car from Munich to the Fuessen area. We stayed in Hohenschwangau two nights and never moved the car while there (walked and one bus ride). It was about a 3-3.5 hour drive from there to Rothenburg, and you don't need a car once there. From there we drove to Cochem, and again didn't move the car until we left. So while I think the car is convenient from getting from one area to another, it was somewhat of an inconvenience once we got somewhere. We were traveling as a family of four, but with fewer people I would probably try to use public transportation (like Lee does!). But I have to admit I really like using trains (and subways), and don't so much love driving/navigating in unfamiliar places. Personal choice, I guess.

The trains don't follow the Romantic Road exactly or hit every single town on the list - after all, it's a road. But the trains are an easy, cheap and reliable way to see the area, and they'll take you to the majority of the towns - and to other places as well.

The RR itself doesn't include some of the most interesting towns and places to visit - but the trains do. So a lot of people who drive the RR miss out on other interesting places like Eichstaett, Iphofen, Pappenheim, Bad Windsheim, Weissenburg, Nuremberg, and Bamberg.

The train's a great way to go - use the Bayern ticket daypass, which usually makes sense at 28 Euros per day for 2-5 people. Select some towns on the RR list and look into some others off the road - like the ones I suggested above. Below is a map of the train system in Bavaria - use it to plot your route.

http://www.bayern-takt.de/media/PDF-Files/Netzkarten/Netzkarte_Gesamt0608.pdf

While we like to use trains and on a trip beginning day after tomorrow to Switzerland, Austria, and Prague, we will use them exclusively, there are times when we prefer a car. In May, we rented a car in Koln and drove down the Rhine to Koblenz, up (maybe down) the Mossel to Cochem, back to Koblenz and to Rothenburg. Stayed in Rothenburg three nights and during that time explored Rothenburg and drove up the Romantic Road to towns between Rothenburg and Wurzburg. When we left Rothenburg, we drove south to visit towns on the RR going toward Munich. I agree with Russ, but would include Ulm. Then drove from Munich to Feussen and went through Oberamagau on the way back to Munich. The car advantage was that we didn't have to worry about luggage and could spend whatever amount of time we wanted, not dependent upon train schedules. Russ: is it Paradise, CA? If so, did you once work for Wells in Chico?