Germany - Romantic road (Romantische Strasse) and Black Forest

We travelled by train to Munich from Salsburg on the slow train - took about two hours but was really cheap - only Euro30 for both of us.

Arrived at 11:30 - talked to the Tourist info lady who was very helpful and then collected our hire car. Again the woman who helped us was great!

Driving in Germany is much more pleasurable than in France - the roads are wider, traffic flows better and Mark was happier!

Friedburg

We went to Freidburg first and had a coffee and look around, there was hardly a tourist to be seen. Prices were cheaper than most of what we have seen so far. After about an hour we moved on to Augsburg.

Augsburg


Augsburg was first established by Augustus Caeser. It's a large town but again no rushing of people. The tourist office found us some accommodation for the night where we could also park our car. It is a nice hotel and seems to belong to a church. The town has Mozart House like every other town in this part of the world. It seems that the only connection to Mozart is that his second cousins housekeeper was born here - no really it was his dad's house.



The town has three fountains running down the main street, it's called Fugger Strasse and the fountains whilst not as grand as some we have seen are very ornate. There is also a Fugger House and a Fugger Bank. Apparently the Fugger's were very prolific.

Tomorrow we are off to the Black Forest to find some cake!!

Schiltach



What a beautiful little town - just like the postcards and without many tourists. Shiltach is on the old Roman road between Salzburg and Rotweil. Buildings are of the "half wooded" style. That means they have a timber frame that is infilled with adobe.

We got a hotel (Gasthof Sonne) in the middle of town. It was hundreds of years old and a great place to stay. The breakfast was good too.

One of the most notable things about Schiltach is that it is the first town we've visited for a week that doesn´t have a Mozart house. Perhaps they haven't tried hard enough to make the connection.

Wolfach



Another beautiful town that we passed through. We looked for somewhere to park, but I didn't like the sound of this street.

Triberg



This was just a brief stop. It is full of tourists and cuckoo clocks. One positive is a waterfall nearly in the middle of town.

We had some Black Forest cake there.

Titisee



We stayed overnight here. It looks a bit like Wanaka in New Zealand - a town on the edge of a lake with alpine sports in winter and water sports in summer. If you think that sounds wonderful, you may be wrong.

Titisee feels a bit like the Gold Coast except with cheap beer and cuckoo clocks and NO surf. It has everything the uncultured mindless tourist could want. After a few hours we wished we had chosen a different overnight stop. We found somewhere to stay by following a sign to a guesthouse near the lake. An old lady swapped us a key for 50 euros. It included breakfast, so sounded like a bargain. We were the only guests, so we left the door open for ventilation while we discussed our travel plans. The old lady told us off for leaving the door open. We couldn´t understand her and she couldn´t understand us, but she got the message accross. Cranky old biddy. Now wonder the place was mostly empty.

On to Wurzburg

We were very happy to see the back end of Titisee as we drove off at high speed (as high speed as one can do in a Fiat Panda). Fortunately we had a GPS to tell us the best way to distance ourselves. The German highways are an interesting experience. Even when I got the Panda up to 150kph, other cars would fly past so fast that it seemed like we were still.

At one stage we passed a massive German army convoy heading east. `Here we go again`I thought to myself.

We found out that on this Saturday there will be a world cup soccer match between Germany and Australia. We are concerned that on the off chance that Oz wins, we may be lynched.

Wurzburg



Wurzburg also dates back to Roman times. Unfortunately our hotel was a bit cheap and crappy. The town is beautiful and friendly. Every time we would consult the guide map, the first passer-by would offer assistance then wish us a happy trip. The church in the photograph was nearly destroyed in World War 2. One spire is original. The other was rebuilt to roughly match.

It is the northern-most town of the Romantishe Strasse. Tomorrow we will be off to Rottenburg ob der Tauber.

Lauder Konigshoven

We found out today what 'einbahnstrasse' means. It explains a lot about why people keep looking at Mark strangely when he drives.

Rottenberg ob der tauber



The main road into the place was closed and we had to work out another way. The GPS was no help at all, we ended up driving around barriers and found our way. It was very nice and worth the mucking around.




Dinkelsbuhl



Drove to Dinkelsbuhl today - it was such a lovely town that we decided to stay for the night. Our accommodation was a bit more expensive than we have planned but it was worth it. It was a hotel called Meiser's. The bathroom was bigger than some of the rooms we had stayed in.

Germany is very serious about the world cup, everywhere you go there are cars with German flags and there are big screens set up in the middle of town to watch the matches. One positive was that they played lots of old Australian music for a few days.

As we walked around the town, we noticed strange chalk inscriptions on numerous doors. It looked like some kind of secret message that should fit in "The Da Vinci Code". We quizzed some locals. It seems it relates to some sections of the bible. It is written by Christians advertising their faith.

Nordilingen

This town is perfectly circular and surrounded by a complete wall, centered on a massive church. It sits in a massive meteorite crater. It was interesting to spend an hour or two there, but that was enough.

Schwanstein



About 150 years ago, King Ludwig of Bavaria decided to build himself a new castle although he already had one close by and more in Munich. Work on Neue Schwanstein castle progressed for some years before the government declared the King insane then arrested him. He died a day later. It seems he was probably murdered. His castle only has about 15 complete rooms, but they are very spectacular.

The weather was so gloomy, that we could barely make out the castle from the road. Getting to the castle involves parking the car, getting a tour ticket, getting a bus ticket, boarding the bus, waiting for your tour....... You might expect that German effiency would make this a streamlined simple process. Unfortunately that was not the case. Most of these steps involved a long queue, in the pouring rain. If the weather was good, we would probably have been happy to soak in the ambiance, but on this occasion, we just soaked. When we did see the castle, it was spectacular.

Fussen

By this stage it was late and we had no accommodation booked, so we drove around until we found a bed and breakfast. It was comfortable and cheap and had a backdrop of the alps in Austria. The next morning, we walked the streets of Fussen old town. It contains spectacular old buildings and numerous places to get food or coffee.

Schwanstein again

The weather cleared up so we swung by the castles again.