I will be arriving into Frankfurt mid June, and would like to know if it possible to do the more iteresting areas of the romantic rd within 5 days. I will be travelling by train also, is this to much of a hassle? If anybody has any recommendations on what towns to stop at and for how many days, that would be wonderful!I will be heading down to Lucerne after the five days, so need to head south on the Romantic Rd....also, is it easy enough to find accomodation when arriving into the towns that time of year, or am i better off booking?
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https://www.romantischestrasse.de
railroad map Bavaria
bayerntakt.de/media/…Netzkarte_Gesamt0608.pdf
The railroads in red are served at least hourly by regional trains.
For longer trips you can use the Bavaria Ticket as these places are connected by regional trains only anyway.
bahn.de/international/…laender_tickets.shtml
The most interesting places (Würzburg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Nördlingen, Füssen) can be reached by train. Albeit the railroads do not follow the Romantic Road as such (it%26#39;s at least a road).
You can distribute your days a long the road. Candidates for 2 nights could be Rothenburg or Füssen.
From Füssen you could travel to Lindau, stay there and proceed next day to Lucerne. Most interesting route for this is train from Lindau to Friedrichshafen Hafen (harbour) station, ferry to Romanshorn, Pre-Alpine Express to Lucerne.
Lindau
http://web20.icserver3.de/index.php?sid=1027
Zeppelin-Museum in the Friedrichshafen Harbour station
http://www.zeppelin-museum.de/
Pre-Alpine Express
www.voralpen-express.ch/index.php?TPL=10097
Strange: the Zeppelin-Museum and the Pre-Alpine Express had until recently really good pages also in English. Now they have relaunched their websites and no English anymore (yet).
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With the maps abalada has provided, you can see that the trains cover Bavaria rather well - but do not follow the RR exactly. But this is not a problem. You probably shouldn%26#39;t follow the RR exactly either, even if all the tourists are doing just that, or you%26#39;ll miss a lot of really interesting places.
The RR towns I%26#39;ve liked most:
Würzburg%26#39;s a large mostly modern city but worth a stop for the Residenz.
Weikersheim%26#39;s Palace is worth seeing too.
Rothenburg is unique - so well preserved, and worthy of a day%26#39;s time. Very touristy though.
Nördlingen is quite special and less touristy.
Füssen: too heavily touristed and not that special except for its wonderful setting. Neuschwanstein Castle is visually stunning but makes for a disappointing tour. I would recommend Füssen only if you just want to enjoy some alpine walking, but Garmisch is probably a better choice for this.
Other fine places not far from the RR that you should definitely look into for a 5-day trip:
Garmisch
Mittenwald
Nuremberg
Bamberg
Regensburg comes highly recommended as well by many - but I haven%26#39;t had the pleasure yet myself.
With 5 days, assuming you aren%26#39;t planning on Munich, which requires a few days itself, you could maybe spend 2-3 days in the north - use Nuremberg or Würzburg as a base for seeing Bamberg, Rothenburg - then 2 days in the south around Garmisch, maybe hitting Nördlingen or Regensburg on the way.
Since you%26#39;re on foot, I%26#39;d recommend reservations so you don%26#39;t waste time looking for a place or end up in the hinterlands somewhere where you have to waste a lot of time coming and going to the sights.
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If you want to easily see all the places along the Romantic Road, drive, after all it is a road. There are plenty of them, and I think most people who actually drive the Romantic Road only stop at a few sights. If you want to visit just a few highlights, then trains will work for you, however even then I think it is best to have a car. With a car you can stop for as long as you like, be it a few minutes or hours, and not have to worry about meeting a train schedule. And if you want to stop at places along the way on a train with your luggage, then there has to be available lockers for it. With a car, just toss it in the trunk and forget it. I doubt that very many people that take a train to visit Rothenburg ob der Tauber ever go down to the river to view it on the skyline which is nice. However, if you have a car it is just a few minutes drive versus a much longer walk down and then back up.
Of course, they are plenty of other excellent places not on the Romantic Road but fairly close by it that have good train service. However, if you drive and choose not to follow the Romantic Road, there are also many excellent places to visit nearby and some of them nowhere near a railroad, such as if you%26#39;d like to spend a night in the 12th century Katzenstein Castle ( www.burg-katzenstein.de only in German). Also, by having a car you can get away from the foreign tourist hordes during summer as many of them only go to places accessable by train.
As to accomodations, in the more popular places it probably would be best to have reservations. If you%26#39;re driving, in other places it should be easy to find accomodations as you can also stay in slightly more remote areas.
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I see that the website above is incorrect, it should be www.burgkatzenstein.de .
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Marco,
I would assume that you drive your own car. When we lived in Germany and had our own car, the advantages weighed much heavier for car travel. We focused more on visiting the countryside, places not easily (if at all) accessible by public transportation.
Now that we returning, train travel is not more restrictive. It is easier to visit towns, no traffic or parking issues. There are usually many choices of schedules. We have not missed any connections but it would usually only be an hour if we did. Standing on train platforms is nicer than standing in traffic jams.
We spend more time walking when traveling by train, which is nicer for us. I have reached the used-it-or-lose-it age.
Plus, it is always a challenge to mingle with Germans (French, Italians, etc.). Train travels seem to me to make this easier. It is people watching, like a Paris cafe.
Finally, traveling by train, we do not have to deal with car rental agencies. Through work and pleasure I have dealt with enough of them, to know that some are not reputable. I was stuck pretty well by one in Ramstein, Germany.
The places that I wanted to visit on the Romantic Road were accessible by train.
Regards, Gary
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Trikist,
Of course we use both car and train. For the countryside and seeing rural things, trains are ridiculous, and the opposite can be said for cities where cars are of little use. For the countryside, using my Shell regional maps of Germany, I have the choice of hundreds of places along the way to stop if driving, and have visited over 20 delightful rural churches in a day plus some other things; using the train, you would have a hard time visiting just a few of them, however, most of them were not on a train line, and with trains every one or two hours, what you can do is extremely limited.
About your comment about waiting on train platforms, it%26#39;s no joy on a cold-wet November evening to wait for over an hour for the next train which arrives 10 minutes late when you just missed the earlier train by a few seconds. A few things that no one ever mentions about trains as I observed a few weeks ago on our trip from Stuttgart to Konstanz, the train windows are frequently dirty, and with the sun shining on them you can%26#39;t see out. Also, when it becomes dark outside and the train lights are on inside all you can see is the reflection of the interior. Of course, I never have these problems with our car, I always make sure that the windows are clean.
But for the original poster, there is plenty to see and do using either means of transportation. Both have their good and bad points, but as the Romantic Road is basically rural except for two places, Augsburg and Wuerzburg, a car is best suited for it if you actually want to visit the many places along it instead of just a few towns that are served by rail. And by driving, its easy to visit many places in a short time.
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Thanks for your reply, your info was helpfull.
Little undecided on car or train... as we will be travelling from Australia is it easy enough to follow the road signs along the romantic road, is the traffic really congested, and I guess the whole driving on the other side of the rd, is a little scary. If we were to pick up a hire car out of Frankfurt, is the traffic and road to Wuzburg full on? Thanks..
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Thanks very much for you reply
Do you know how long the trip from Lindau to Lucern would take? Can I book on the day for that trip or would it all have to be pre booked.
Also if the trains run pretty much hourly along the RR, can i just purchase a ticket apon arrival?
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Lindau - Friedrichshafen Hafen: 30-45 min
Ferry Friedrichshafen - Romanshorn: 41 min
Pre-Alpine Express Romanshorn - Lucerne: 2:46
This is the shortest but due the ferry and the scenic but slow railroads the Pre-Alpine Express is using not the fastest possible route.
You can buy tickets on spot. To my knowledge it%26#39;s possible to buy one ticket for this route.
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%26gt; Also if the trains run pretty much hourly along the RR, can i just purchase a ticket apon arrival?
Yes. Normal tickets till 100 km are valid one day.
For longer trips the Bavaria Ticket will be the better deal. Covering all regional trains in Bavaria. Plus nearly all other local public transport (trams, buses). This ticket is valid
Mo-Fr: from 9am till 3am next day
Sa,Su: from midnight till 3am next day
Bavaria Ticket Single (1 person) EUR 20,00
Bavaria Ticket (2-5 persons) EUR 28,00
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