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18 Days Through Europe
In An Audi
Germany's Romantic Road (Romantische Strasse)
Wurzburg was our first stop on our trip down the Romantic Road. We found
the Residence Palace without too much trouble and parked in the huge lot
in front of the 17th/18th century building. The palace is probably known
We caught an English tour of the palace and wandered through elegant and
unique meeting rooms and banquet halls. One room is done entirely in
shades of white. (Didn't know white had so many shades.) The Residence
Our tour over, we crossed the parking lot to find some lunch. We never tired of the outdoor cafes and found one a block away from the palace. Much to my delight, I got to practice my German again. Our waitress spoke little English. I ordered deep fried camembert cheese cakes with cranberry sauce. They were absolutely delicious and I found them once or twice again along the way.
A short drive brought us to Fortress Marienberg, used as the residence for Along the Romantic Road are 27 towns and villages you can stop at. Unless you plan to spend the good part of a week, you cannot see them all. We stopped on our way to Rothenburg at Bad Mergentheim. The former town of residence of the Grand and German Masters of the Order of Teutonic Knights. Just beyond the castle in the middle of a garden area, was a delightful cafe serving up the fanciest tea I have ever seen even in England. Dick was overwhelmed with the presentation. The rest of us enjoyed cappuccinos.
The Market Square is the gathering place for the nightly tour from Easter to Christmas. The tour is in English and conducted by Hans Georg Baumgartner, the Night Watchman. It was excellent. The hour long walk takes you through the streets of Rothenburg and offers a wealth of information about the history, buildings, the wall, and even Hell (one of the local bars). Baumgartner's English is easy to understand. His humor is wry and he makes the experience unique.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a medieval town that has survived the ravages
of wars and the modernization of the rest of the world. When tourism
became important, laws were passed to prevent home owners from changing
Dinkelsbuehl was the next stop along the road. We were glad we chose to
stay longer in Rothenburg for Dinkelsbuehl, as quaint as it was did not
measure up to our expectations. The Minster of St. George was impressive
however. It is a beautiful late Gothic church with huge pillars rising
high above your head. It gave quite a sensation of Arriving in Noedlingen, another walled town, we saw a building that matched the picture of our hotel from the web. It looked historic, well preserved historic, but to our dismay and delight we found that the hotel was actually the modern structure behind it. I say dismay and delight because we were looking for an adventurous stay in an old monastery but were delighted to find a four star hotel with huge rooms and very nice accommodations. There was an old statue in the lobby from the old monastery and some of the windows at the end of the hallway looked original but everything else was very contemporary. A fair or festival was taking place with rides, food, and lots of interesting booths marketing all sorts of products. The guys opted to visit the fair after dinner while we girls decided we needed a little time with our feet up. They found the fair to be a lot of fun and came back with some good stories and a bottle of carbonated water. Bob didn't know how to ask for the one without the bubbles.
In the morning, we opted to walk the wall around the city, counting the
towers as we went. I believe there's 11. Bob and Dick were going to climb
the bell tower in St. Georgeskirche but for some reason it wasn't opening
for Before turning off the Romantic Road to head for Oberammergau, we drove through a few of the other towns highlighted on our Romantic map. Each little town had a May pole and each May pole had unique decorations common to that area of Germany.
Oberammergau is not on the Romantic road but all of us had visited before.
Polly and Dick enjoyed the Passion Play but were too rushed to see all the
little shops and
©Karen Robbins All text and photos on this page are copyrighted in my name. Please obtain permission for use.
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best for the world's largest unsupported ceiling fresco by Giovanni
Battista Tiepolo. Unfortunately for us, there was a huge renovation
project going on that had a good part of the fresco covered by a
large picture of what it would look like if you could see it. We did get a
peek at some of the workers with tiny brushes carefully repairing little
spots that were deteriorating with age. The unsupported ceiling was
designed by architect and engineer,
Palace
had one of the prettiest chapels we saw on our trip. There are two more
Tiepolo works displayed there, The Fall of the Angels and The
Assumption of the Virgin. 
the local prince-bishops from 1253-1720. Obviously they weren't concerned
with keeping out the riff-raff anymore. The moat was dry and planted in
grass with a few trees. The structure was very interesting, as was the 8th
century Marienkirche, but we passed on the museums. We needed to move
along to our evening destination--
It was almost six when we arrived at the Best Western Hotel Merian. The
hotel was on the second floor over a carpet store, small but very nice. We
got directions to a restaurant that was just outside the gate to the town
of Rothenburg obT. It was a lovely meal but in the customary style of
Americans, we were in a hurry. The night watchman tour was to begin at 8
p.m. and we were getting nervous
about missing it. I don't think our hostess was pleased with our
impatience. 
their residences and loosing the flavor of the medieval times that
permeate the walled city. We explored the wall early the next morning. You
can almost circumnavigate the whole city from above. Along the way are
stones engraved with names of those who have contributed to the
restoration of the wall after it was bombed in WWII. We spent a good part
of the day exploring all the shops, tasting the "snowballs", pastry
favorites 
that
Rick Steves warned against. They looked good and we bought 4 of them. They
are about 5 inches in diameter with different flavored fillings and
coatings. One would have been enough for all of us. 
dignity and grace as you walked down the aisle between the towering
supports. We found a place for our afternoon tea and coffee and then
traveled on to Noedlingen where we were staying the night in an old
monastery.
another hour after we finished our walk and we decided to move on.
enjoy the atmosphere of the town. We had stopped during a tour and barely
had time for a cup of coffee so we were all excited about being able to
walk the town leisurely and enjoy the artwork adorning the half timbered
walls. There are a couple of woodcarving shops that I especially enjoyed
since I collect wood pieces. We lingered long enough for the guys to
complain that the credit cards were too hot and then went on to our next
overnight stop, Salzburg, Austria.