A road trip through Germany (part 4): The ‘romantic road’

Winding through hills and meadows dotted with quaint medieval towns, Bavaria’s ‘romantic road’ will give you an idea of what the region used to be like hundreds of years ago.

In September 2015, my mom, my wife and I embarked on a month-long trip through Germany, with a few days in Belgium and the UK thrown in for good measure. On the itinerary: Wuppertal, Brussels, the Rhine, Germany’s ‘romantic road’, Munich and the Oktoberfest, Berlin, London and Cambridge. All in a month’s time. This is part four of the story, and is about our experiences on the ‘romantic road’.

Also read: Part 1 (Wuppertal and Cologne); Part 2 (Brussels and Nieuwpoort); Part 3 (The Rhine); Part 5 (Ainring, Salzburg and the Jenner) and Part 6 (Munich and the Oktoberfest)

In this post

Mainz: a living remnant of an ancient world

After our few days of doing nothing much in Gau-Algesheim, it was time to hit the road again. This time, there wasn’t anyone to say hi to, and it was about soaking in the past along the ‘romantic road’. This is what they call a route that includes a whole lot of towns and villages that still retain their medieval charm from hundreds of years ago. Before getting started, though, we were given a taste of things to come with a quick tour of Mainz, courtesy my mom’s friend’s daughter. The city of Mainz is itself over 2,000 years old, and has lots to see. During our whistle-stop tour, we got to see how the past and the present rub shoulders here, with quaint old taverns and the thousand-year-old cathedral of St. Martin existing side-by-side with public works of art and modern architecture.

Places to stay in Mainz

Here’s a list of hotels in Mainz on TripAdvisor

Mainz - Street — A rain-washed street in the old town

Mainz - Street 2 — Old architecture: A wooden framework filled in with mortar

Mainz - Tiny house — A tiny inn sandwiched between larger houses

Mainz - Window flowers — Typical hanging flowerbeds in the windows

Mainz - Cathedral — The ancient cathedral

Mainz - Cathedral garden — The cathedral’s cloister gardens

Mainz - Cathedral and flowers — The cathedral seen from afar

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Moving on to Wuerzburg

After seeing a bit of Mainz, it was time for us to get on the romantic road. Because we didn’t have the time—or the inclination—to see all 28 towns and villages along this route, we decided we would limit ourselves to Wuerzburg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Dinkelsbuehl and Augsburg. After a couple of hours of driving, and a lunch stop with yet another friend of my mom’s, we got to Wuerzburg, and spent some time trying to make our way through the slightly confusing roads to our hotel. The rain didn’t help either. We finally found the Hotel Residence, a cozy place in a little alley just off a bewildering crossroad on the riverside, and ideally located in the old town. To our relief, we also found a place to park in front of the hotel, and didn’t need to park in the public ‘parkhaus’ back up the road.

The riverside promenade and old docks

That evening, we wandered up and down the riverside promenade, taking in the views of the Marienberg fortress sitting on its hill, envying the locals drinking wine along the Old Bridge, and admiring the old mills and loading cranes along the river. We also strolled through the quarters near our hotel, looking at the illuminated cathedral next to the old marketplace, and generally soaking in the atmosphere. For dinner, we ate at the riverside restaurant Alter Kranen, set in a repurposed loading dock with ancient cranes outside and huge old storage silos underneath. The restaurant had great views of the river, however was predictably expensive, and the meal wasn’t altogether special.

The Residence and the Marienberg fortress

Early the next morning, we took in the imposing Residenz—the palace of the prince-bishops that ruled the city until the early 1800s—with its huge entrance hall designed to fit horse-drawn carriages, and its incredible frescoes and baroque stucco work. Next on the list was the hilltop Marienberg fortress, said to have been built over the remains of a 3,000-year old Celtic castle. We spent a pleasant hour or two wandering the impressive ramparts, admiring the views of the city and the surrounding hills, and taking in the pretty little palace garden, before leaving for Rothenburg.

Places to stay in Wuerzburg

Here’s a list of hotels in Wuerzburg on TripAdvisor

Also read: Eight reasons why you should visit Rajasthan, the ‘land of kings’

Wuerzburg - Hotel — Wayfinding signage in our hotel

Wuerzburg - River from bridge — The river from the bridge

Wuerzburg - Bridge 1 — Locals drink wine on the bridge in the evening

Wuerzburg - Bridge 2 — The old bridge with one of its statues

Wuerzburg - Riverbank — A bronze lion stands guard along the river

Wuerzburg - Cathedral — The illuminated cathedral in the evening

Wuerzburg - Castle gate 1 — The gate through the first fortification of the Marienberg fortress

Wuerzburg - Moat garden — The garden in the old moat

Wuerzburg - Castle ramparts — The ramparts

Wuerzburg - Castle tower — The guard tower in the fortress’s quadrangle

Wuerzburg - Castle garden 1 — The palace garden

Wuerzburg - Castle garden 4 — Statues in the palace garden look at each other

Wuerzburg - View from castle - town 1 — A view down the hillside to the town, with vineyards in the foreground

Wuerzburg - View from castle - town 7 — Count the churches (hint: there are at least five)

Wuerzburg - View from castle - town 6 — A view upriver

Wuerzburg - Castle cottage — A disused old cottage

Wuerzburg - View from castle - Hill 2 — The next hill from the fortress

Wuerzburg - Street cafe — A street cafe with a view of the cathedral

A movie set called Rothenburg

Our next stop on the romantic road was Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Rothenburg, for short). We had heard that this was one of the most popular stops along the romantic road because of its fairytale atmosphere, but we didn’t realize just how popular it was! Though we got there at lunchtime, there were still plenty of tourists to be seen—though luckily we had missed the hordes of Japanese tourists that tend to visit earlier in the day. We were a little disappointed, because the town, while pretty enough, came across as a tad artificial. This was further reinforced by the hundreds of souvenir stores, one of which was staffed by a Japanese shopkeeper who didn’t even speak German!

The high point of our visit was a hugely satisfying bowl of pumpkin soup at Café Einzigartig, a cozy little art café filled with tastefully mismatched furniture and sundry bric-a-brac, all of which was for sale.

Places to stay in Rothenburg

Here’s a list of hotels in Rothenburg on TripAdvisor

Rothenburg - Road — The road to Rothenburg

Rothenburg - First view — The first glimpse

Rothenburg - Gate — The gate to Rothenburg

Rothenburg - Window flowers — An inn with flowers in the windows

Rothenburg - Cafe 3 — Cafe Einzigartig – Glorious chaos!

Rothenburg - Cafe 2 — Everything for sale

Rothenburg - Square — The square with the town hall to the right

Rothenburg - Marien apotheke — The ancient chemists in Rothenburg

The past is alive in Dinkelsbuehl

After lunch, we headed to Dinkelsbuehl, our next stop on the romantic road. We got there in the afternoon, and were pleasantly surprised by how authentic and ‘alive’ the walled old town still felt. The moat around the fortified walls, the old defensive towers, and the narrow streets and alleys seemed straight out of a history book, albeit filled with an obviously modern population. We wandered the streets a little, and then settled down for a quintessentially German afternoon coffee-and-cake at the cozy Café Haagen, tucking into a typical Bavarian ‘zwetschgendatschi’ plum cake.

Thus fortified, we continued on to our next destination: a little town near Munich that would serve as the base for our visit to Augsburg, our last stop on the romantic road—all the hotels in Augsburg having been booked out for a guild conference.

Places to stay in Dinkelsbuehl

Here’s a list of hotels in Dinkelsbuehl on TripAdvisor

Also read: Millennia back in time: The magnificent temples of Madurai and Tanjore

Dinkelsbuehl - Moat 1 — The moat around Dinkelsbuehl

Dinkelsbuehl - Rowhouses — Rowhouses with flowers

Dinkelsbuehl - cafe haagen — Coffee and Zwetschgendatschi

Dinkelsbuehl - Cafe and bulldog — Cafe, doggie and statue

Dinkelsbuehl - Church between houses — Church spire

Dinkelsbuehl - Scooter in alley — A scooter in a narrow alley

Dinkelsbuehl - Tower — A solid stone church tower

Dinkelsbuehl - Window flowers — Flowers again

Dinkelsbuehl - Moat 2 — Another view of the moat, with the town having grown beyond it

Augsburg, a modern city with a long history

When we got to Augsburg the next morning, we found it the least ‘romantic’ of the places we had seen so far. The feel was that of a bustling modern town, one that pays tribute to its historical banker-patrons by just getting on with business, despite its sprinkling of medieval walls, churches and towers.

What we found very interesting, though, was the Fuggerei: a charitable township for the needy founded in the 1500s by the Fugger family of bankers, and still maintained by them today. The conditions for residence in the township’s houses have also remained unchanged since then, including the rent, which is the equivalent of approximately 0.8 Euros per year!

We spent an interesting hour or so among the Fuggerei’s modest but cozy-looking houses, its little gardens, and its small underground WWII museum, housed in an erstwhile bomb shelter.

A stroll along the Maximilianstrasse

After visiting the Fuggerei, we walked along the grand old boulevard—the Maximilianstrasse—in the old town, and gandered at the old housing complexes built for the Fuggers that still line the boulevard. On the boulevard, we also saw Augsburg’s famous fountain of Hercules, as well as the abbey of St. Ulrich and St. Afra, which interestingly combines two churches, one Roman Catholic and the other Lutheran.

Done with Augsburg and the romantic road, we headed off to our next destination: the tiny village of Ainring near Austria, and just across the border from Salzburg.

Places to stay in Augsburg

Here’s a list of hotels in Augsburg on TripAdvisor

Augsburg - Pit stop car — Evening pit stop off the highway

Augsburg - Pit stop Minnie — Sunset over the fields

Augsburg - Fuggerei street — The Fuggerei houses

Augsburg - Fuggerei - Vine-covered house — Vine-covered house at the Fuggerei

Augsburg - Pump — Ancient Fuggerei handpump

Augsburg - Fountain — The fountain of Hercules

Augsburg - Church — The abbey of St. Ulrich and St. Afra

Also read: Part 1 (Wuppertal and Cologne); Part 2 (Brussels and Nieuwpoort); Part 3 (The Rhine); Part 5 (Ainring, Salzburg and the Jenner) and Part 6 (Munich and the Oktoberfest)

IQ’s top tips for the Romantic Road

In Wuerzburg, prices for accommodation, food and parking in the historic quarter are, predictably, higher than elsewhere.

The Wuerzburg Residence opens early, so if you have a tight schedule, it might make sense to put that first on your list.
Visiting Rothenburg around lunchtime or later would be a good idea if you want to avoid the morning busloads of tourists.
We regretted not being able to spend more time in Dinkelsbuehl. If you can, we recommend spending at least a day there.

The bustle of Augsburg may come as a slight shock after the rest of the romantic road. Be prepared.
In Augsburg, the Fuggerei is definitely worth a visit.