Romantische Strasse (part two)

Half way down the Romantic Road at Donnauworth, we realised that we had time to visit some friends we met on our 2007 Danube trip, who live at Bergenweiler, just off the Danube bike path. It was great to have the opportunity to cover some of the same ground, and we found we could even remember some of the places that we'd visited before.

Our friends gave us a great welcome, and made us feel at home, with the Aussie Flag flying when we got there.

We had a traditional dish, schupfnudeln mit kraut for dinner, which was delicious, then afterwards had a nice chat outside in front of a beech wood fire, sampling some wines from their cellar.
Next day, they took us to see the Steiff stuffed animals museum, which Hannelore loved, and I found ...interesting.

In the afternoon, we visited a cave, "Charlotten Hohle" which is 500 metres long, and took an hour or so for the guided tour.
In a trip full of highlights, for me, this visit to our cycling friends topped the list.

Back to the Kanu Club in Donnauworth next day, and continuing the tour, we went to Augsburg the day after that.
Augsburg is a very big Bavarian City, where Hannelore was in hospital after her 2008 accident. She didn't have a chance to visit it then, so we gave it a thorough visit this time, and spent a day and a half there.

Perlacturm, Augsburg

We went to the Zoo, went up the Perlachturm, visited the Dom and St Ulrichs, and the Market, amongst other places of interest. Like many big German Cities, Augsburg was heavily bombed in World War II, (I think it had the Messerschmitt factory), but has been rebuilt since.



 From Augsburg we went to Landsberg, (smaller, some spectacular scenery on the Lech River), then across to Utting am Ammersee, simply because of the name.

Uttingstroke being performed by its inventor, Utting at Utting

 We've been there before for an afternoon, but this time had a day off there as well, and visited by boat, Herrsching, on the other side, and Andechs, a beer brewing monastery where we sampled, in a wimpish 1/2 litre way, their product (Bavarians drink full litres). I also managed a swim at Utting, and put in a good number of metres of "Utting Stroke".

mv Augsburg, our ship on the Ammersee

Next day we came away from Utting, to Altenstadt, to visit Barbara, who helped us greatly when Hannelore had her accident. On the way, we passed the accident site, and took an appropriate victory picture.

Hannelore at her accident site

Barbara gave us a big welcome, and we stayed with her for two nights, visiting nearby Schongau, a town on the Romantic Road that we are fairly familiar with. We like it because it has a lot of tourist type points of interest, and not many tourists.
Next point for us, down the Romantic Road, was Wieskirche, the "church in a field", which is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Wieskirche near Steingarten

The same day, we carried on to Schwangau, where we camped at the most expensive (22 euros) and worst camping area we have experienced so far. Practically head to toe with our fellow tent tourists, our night was as expected, a lot of uninteresting discussion from our various neighbours, and when they did go to sleep,their snoring eclipsed mine.

Schlosse Neuschwanstein

Next day, we packed up quickly and left, to visit the famous Neuschwanstein castle, built by Ludwig II. Started in 1869, and never quite finished,it is never the less a wonderful piece of work, and attracts thousands of tourists each day. Afterwards, we experienced an amazing thunderstorm while we were at a hotel having a beer, which prompted us to find a Gasthause in the town, and as soon as we had installed ourselves there, an even more severe one happened.
Today, we visited Fussen, the last town on the Romantic Road, then came back to our friend Barbara's place at Altenstadt near Schongau.
That's it, all over, apart from travelling to Munich, which we'll also do by bicycle, and catching the 'plane home on the 18th of July. We've had a great trip, cycled over 2000 kilometers, no injuries, and only one puncture!

The Romantische Strasse (Romantic Road)

Wurzburg was really worth a look, and we gave it a good shot, with a day off.

Wurzburg from the Fortress on the hill above

We saw just about everything it had to offer, to mention a few, the Dom St Killian (sounds Irish - yes he brought Catholicism from Ireland and paid for it with his life). There seem to be a lot of St Killian churches in this part of Germany.
We had a guided tour of the Residenz, the bishops palace in the city, and then later went up to his palace on the hill, the Marienburg. Dodging rain the whole time, what stars.

Next day, we pulled out of our nice camping area, at the Kanu club, and started our trip down the Romantic Road (Romantische Strasse). This is 480k from Wurzburg to Fussen, near Schwangau in the south, where Mad King Ludwig built his famous fairy tale castle.

Romantic Road - Forest, Crops, Towns

There are some steep rises coming out of the Main River Valley, one was 16 percent, but,the little Bike Fridays struggled up it, OK.
We stayed that night in a ferienwohnung,(holiday flat),at Tauberbischoffsheim, cost just 20 euros each,we could cook and it had a sitting room. Honestly, the cheaper they are, the better they get!
We did a thorough rubberneck of the town, which has all the quaint usual things, like half timbered houses, Schloss, Churches and a Ratthouse. We even toured a very good museum,which was in the Schloss, and Hannelore says I don't have to go to a museum again, this trip.
At the breakfast next day, Hannelore had a nice conversation with a German couple, whilst I looked and grinned foolishly and nodded occasionally, which is my role.  
The towns in this region are generally beautiful, and well kept, but we got into this smaller one by mistake:

We'd ridden up a steep rise of three or four kilometers to get to Struth, then realised it wasn't on our route, and had to do the ride of shame back down, (with more than "struth" on my lips).  This was our first lesson that following the signs without looking at the guide book doesn't work on the Romantische Strasse, there are a lot of other routes here, and so many arrows you can easily get confused. Also, some of the signs have been vandalised, and some missing.
I started this blog from Donnauworth, on the Danube, half way down the Romantic Road, and it is also on the Danube bike route that we came down in 2007.  All the major towns down this section deserve a picture and a mention, but there isn't time or space. 
Rothenburg was one place where we were fortunate to see not only wonderful buildings, but witnessed a parade, on another holiday long weekend, of course.

The parade went on for half an hour or so, a long stream of colourful costumes and "oompah" bands.


Another town we liked a lot was Nordlingen, which is built in the centre of a crater formed by a meteorite 50 million years ago:

Nordlingen, from the Church Tower ("The Daniel")

The far dark line of trees is the edge of the crater, and the tower with it's 359 steps is right in the centre of the town.
Thats it, moving on now, for the next half of the "Romantic Road".