Driving the Romantic Road

Don't bother. Without looking at ViaMichelin, I'm going to estimate that the northern terminus of the Romantic Road (Würzburg) is at least a two hour drive from St. Goar. A little far for daytrips. The Romantic Road is only one of about a hundred tourist routes ("Ferienstraße") in Germany. The idea is that they link together sites of a certain theme, not that the drive itself is the attraction. And as such, the actual experience of driving the Romantic Road is about the same as driving any secondary route in Germany. If any of the sites on the road interest you, perhaps consider visiting them from Ansbach. But actually driving it just to drive it? Meh... BTW, a week along the Rhine sounds like too much time for me, unless you're taking several daytrips into the surrounding area.

Nan: Ansbach is near the Romantic Road. The Rhine is sometimes known as the "Romantic Rhine" - so maybe you have confused the two places. The Rhine is a fine place to spend several days - maybe a week if you branch out and include the Mosel River too. http://flyhahn.com/regions/romantic-rhine-holiday-region-rhineland-palatinate-germany.htm http://flyhahn.com/regions/moselle-saar-holiday-region-rhineland-palatinate-germany.htm It's possible to visit nearly all these places from St. Goar on a daytrip by train. Daypasses you can buy there: http://www.vrminfo.de/en/tickets-and-fares/ticket-offers/leisure-ticket/ (The Rheinland-Pfalz ticket/daypass costs more than the VRM daypass but covers a larger area.)

I like Wurtzburg the best. It's larger and has more to see than most of the towns. The small towns we chose to stop at, in addition to staying in Rothenburg, were Dinklesbuhl and Nordlingen. Stop at the TI and ask for their best medieval sights, then spend a couple hours looking around and get some lunch. Rather than drive on "the" Romantic Road, we quickly decided it was better to use the Autobahn and go straight to the towns we wanted. The road itself is just a rural road that takes longer than it's worth.

there is a romantic road map you can get it when you're there. you should read before you get on the road and only pick a couple of cities to stop by, but not follow the entire road. i tried to drive it a couple of years ago and found the sign wasn't clearly marked in some sections, and multiple times i missed it and end up getting on the free way, and it turned out saved me a lot of time. and i was also very pleasantly surprised when i stumble across a few small castles and towns on the romantic road.

The first problem with basing out of St, Goar to do the romantic road is that you are on the wrong side of the river so yoou will start and end each day with a ferry crossing which is neither quick or cheap. Spend a couple days in St. Goar to see the Rhine and the Mosel and then move somewhere more central to the Romantic Road.

Irv, have the ferries raised their prices? They used to be really cheap and frequent.