Just Married: Life in Europe: Die Romantische Strasse

Die Romantische Strasse--The Romantic Road. It sounds so elegant and magical, doesn't it? Well, the name is quite fitting, because it really is elegant, magical, and dare I say, romantic. The towns in Germany along the Romantische Strasse, and the road itself, are all medieval in nature. The road is an old Roman route that connects 28 towns together along countless back roads. Though the route has been around for ages, it was "officially created" to spark tourism in Germany after World War II, thus coining the name "Romantische Strasse."

We have already seen the southern route of the Romantische Strasse slightly from Landsberg am Lech to Hohenfurch to Schwangau. We drove this route when we visited the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles in 2011. This was the summer we were newly engaged and right before Justin was deployed.

2011-Neuschwanstein Castle courtyard

2011-Hohenschwangau Castle

Traditionally, the road starts in Wurzburg and ends in Fussen. For this trip we went from Wurzburg to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Rothenburg o.d.T.), which we are guessing is about a third or a fourth of the whole route. We drove through 8 of the 28 towns, including Tauberbischofsheim, Lauda-Konigshofen, Bad Mergentheim, Weikersheim, Rottingen, and Creglingen.

We traveled from Grafenwoehr to Wurzburg, and stopped in Wurzburg before making our Romantic Road adventure (and it really was quite an adventure, but more about that later).

We started exploring Wurburg at the Residenz

Residenz gate to the gardens

Back of the Residenz and the gardens

Cathedral of St. Kilian

A random mummy statue outside the cathedral

Our lunch time view--Marienkapelle

Justin found a friend from England

And so did I

Rathaus and fountain

On the Main Bridge with the Marienberg Fortress on the hill behind us

After enjoying a long morning in Wurzburg, we made our way to the Romantische Strasse.

Before starting out on this adventure we made sure to do our research. We learned that there would be brown "Romantische Strasse" signs along the whole route, but we also wanted to have a map handy, just in case (a special thank you to my Ranger husband for really wanting to do this).

Here is roughly the route we took to follow the Romantische Strasse
Justin created a much more thorough map than this that we used

Luckily, we found our first brown sign right across from the Residenz where we just so happened to have parked. So we started following the signs through Wurzburg.

Romantische Strasse Next Right

We only had to turn around once in Wurzburg because of a confusing road that had one really close left turn and then a wider left turn. I took the close turn when I was supposed to take the wider turn. Luckily, it was an easy fix.

However, once we were out of Wurzburg, the handy-dandy brown signs were few and far between. Thankfully, Justin decided to be extra prepared with that map. He was able to figure out right away that we had missed a turn, which only led us off course for maybe 3 minutes total (note to Germany: there should really be a brown sign at that turn). So we turned around again, found the turn we missed, and continued along our merry way.

It was good that I was driving and Justin was navigating,
or we might have been really lost

It was smooth sailing (driving?) after our initial 2 turnarounds. The drive was beautiful, not too busy, really relaxing, and best of all, we were able to pass through some gorgeous German towns, vineyards, and scenery.

Stopped for a vineyard picture break

Follow the little brown signs

A cute German house we saw along the way

Creglingen, a small walled medieval city

After our 2 hour drive along the Romantische Strasse, we made it to Rothenburg o.d.T. This is the epitome of a German town. It was surreal because it too was walled, and we actually climbed the stairs and walked along the top of the walls. Can you imagine these city walls have been around since the 14th century? It was fun to walk along the tops and wonder what life was like back in the day when cities really needed to be protected with walls and have soldiers on duty constantly patrolling. While we were walking the walls we may or may not have pretended to be Katniss shooting people with bows and arrows.