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".