Romantic Road, Germany Part 1

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"Ve are on zee rhote" said the non Germans in a fake German accent.


Our Europe adventure was a last minute decision and in no way planned at all, so we leaned on all our friends for information. The Romantic Road was suggested by my friend Shawna and boy does she need my hugs and kisses!


"Romantic Road? What is that?" said the native Germany couple we met on a taxi ride in Chiang Mai, Thailand.


It is 385 km long road with 28 tiny cities, towns and villages that have been kept up from the 11th century. How did they not know? Seems barbaric!


Here is our 6 nights, 7 days adventure.


First stop, Wurzburg!


Our first quick stop was a town called Wurzburg. It had a river running through it, dominated by the massive castle of Marienberg. It had majestic little wine hubs all over but it felt a little bit too commercial for us. We only stayed long enough to enjoy a local artist and buy his cds.


Next stop, Rothenburg ob der Tauber.


Can you say love at first sight? Because we fell head over heels with this tiny walled city.  Walled City? Yes, there is a huge medieval wall that surrounds the entire city, this means you have to enter through one of four gates that horses used to use. Driving was tricky as it was only made large enough for carriages and people. The entire city is outfitted in cobble stones and the "newer" buildings were built in the 1500's.


We stayed at an amazing little restaurant, yes restaurant. They just opened 6 rooms above the restaurant and were amazing. They are brand new, and completely charming. The staff was super helpful and the breakfast delightful, not to mention the great dinner.


We explored the city day and night. Oh did we mention that this whole trip it was never above 7 degrees and it rained constantly. I guess we forgot to add that part. This little town is super famous for it's Christmas Market, and they don’t disappoint. They had at least 5 huge Christmas stores that put our one in Banff to shame, TO SHAME I SAY! It was in the beginning of June and we just kept wishing it would snow and Christmas would show itself. Most of the Christmas traditions comes from this town, not to mention all the decorations and cuckoo clocks, which are all hand made of course. They were amazing, the hand made art pieces, hand carved with music, singing animals, amazing beer steins. Anna was in tears half of the day.


One exciting thing we did was the Night Wachman Tour (that again our friend Shawna recommended). It was an authentic, hilarious night tour of the town. Describing everything from its history in the dark ages, to the family that still lives in the same building since 1600's and of course why going to hell is actually a good idea.


Following is our stop in Dinkelsbuhl, yes DINKELS.


A town similar to Rothenburg complete with the wall and towers. We walked the wall of the town which took about 2 hrs and it was incredible. The town was much more colourful and amazingly green. One point we got lost and a 5' old German man helped us out. We tried to explain to him we didn’t speak any German, but he didn’t mind talking to us the whole way.


There were of course a few others little towns we stopped in. Each charming in their own way. We saw so many churches, historic buildings and all the beer gardens on the way. We were driving in a VW Golf which was a very fun car. Driving the winding roads made us reminisce of Australia and New Zealand. Only change was that the drivers in Germany are amazing, and follow the rules except of course when on the Autobahn. Autobahn, what a great invention, go as fast as you want; we thought we were until we had everyone passing us at 180-200km/hr. We've never been so afraid to drive slow in our lives, it was GREAT! 


Next Stops Landsberg am Lech, Rottenbuch, and of course the famous Fussen!














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2 comments:

  1. Good post, I like the way you start and then conclude your thoughts. Hotel in frankfurt-Oder

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent post! The map for Romantic Route Germany that you provided helps me plan the itinerary for my Germany Vacation. I would love to surprise my wife with a romantic vacation to the beautiful country of Germany.

    ReplyDelete

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