Saturday 27 September

Today we continue down the Romantischestrasse, for the moment following the River Tauber. The Romantic Road is a series of towns and villages with some particular feature, be it a church or special bit of architecture, all set in the rolling north Bavarian countryside and all within 30 mins drive of each other. It would have been impossible in the time we've got to stop at them all but generally the road passes through many of them so you don’t miss much.

Church at Tauberbischofen

Stop monkeying around!

The Romantic Road runs through the middle of the haus!

However we did stop at a couple, the first being (takes a big breath!) Tauberbischofsheim!  After parking at the stellplatz, we wandered into this pretty little town, puzzled as to why it was apparently so quiet on a Saturday morning, until we came across a small festival around the church with much drinking of, well, everything and eating of cake and pastries! Deciding to abstain we viewed the schloss, or castle which in this case was really only a fortified manor house but still attractive (but closed).

Tauber..... yes that place again.

Wandering back to the market square we spied the Glockenspiel on the façade of the Rathaus (town hall) and as it was approaching mid-day we sat in the square with coffee and hot chocolate to see if the bells would ring. But they didn't although the timetable said they should, (the lady in the T.I. said there was a function in the room behind it so they might not. Yep, that’s our luck!)

We stopped at the stellplatz at Bad Mergentheim to service Bertie and have lunch before continuing south through more pretty villages. Our target for tonight was Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber, a hilltop walled town with a decent stellplatz. After parking up and battling with the Parkshein Automat to get it to accept €7, we strolled the short distance into the Aldstat, or old town.

What a gorgeous place! Although 40% destroyed in 1945 it seems to have been perfectly preserved with so many beautiful old buildings within the, complete, town walls. It is also a tourist trap and obviously in the height of the season would be crowded but although there were still packs of Japanese tourists being herded about (the area is so popular with the Japanese that many of the signs are bi-lingual) we were able to fully enjoy the ambiance. Definitely a place to be recommended – but perhaps in the quieter months such as now. A few photos.

Markt at Rothenburg

Rothenburg

We've many more, but of course they don't do the place full justice.