Nature & hospitality
Monday, 04.12.23:
overcast clouds.
-7 °C.
460 kilometres packed with exciting experiences, poised between tradition and trend
The Romantic Road is unique
The number one holiday route, the oldest in Germany, and popular throughout the world. The trade mark for 460 kilometres packed with exciting experiences.
The classic alternative to the motorway from north to south and vice versa. A counterbalance to the stress of everyday living. Featuring an artistic, cultural and gastronomic journey, a road of festival plays, a road for the connoisseur, an activity and event trail, it is excitingly poised between tradition and trend. People come by car, by bike, by bus or on foot. They come on excursions, weekend trips, short holidays or on the track of something special. They come to "experience" a series of snapshots of 3,000 years of German and European history in 29 towns between the river Main and the Alps, the dreaming castles of the fairy-tale king in Schwangau and the baroque splendour of the Würzburg "Residenz" palace.
The colourful, multi-layered tableau of the Romantic Road bears the marks of Celts, Romans and Carolingians, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Baroque and Rococo periods, Biedermeier and Wilhelmine Germany as well as the present day. Nobility, knights and potentates ruled in powerful castles and magnificent palaces such as those in Bad Mergentheim, Weikersheim and Röttingen, Schillingsfürst, Wallerstein and Harburg. Rich citizens, well-travelled traders and stalwart craftsmen peopled medieval half-timbered towns with gateways, towers and town walls – towns like Tauberbischofsheim, Lauda-Könighofen, Creglingen, Rothenburg o. d. Tauber, Feuchtwangen, Dinkelsbühl, Nördlingen and Donauwörth, Augsburg with its world-famous, first-ever alms houses, the 'Fuggerei', Friedberg and Landsberg on the river Lech.
Matthias Grünewald, Tilman Riemenschneider and Veit Stoß, the brothers Asam und Zimmermann, Neumann and Tiepolo all created art for a world audience. In the pretty villages and picturesque little towns of the Pfaffenwinkel region, such as Hohenfurch, Schongau, Peiting, Rottenbuch, Wildsteig and Steingaden, peasants, monks and princes of the church created chapels and churches which offered a feast of baroque and rococo exuberance for all the senses culminating in the world heritage church, the Wieskirche. The traces of each age are unmistakable and, in conjunction with the magical natural background, leave behind unforgettable impressions.