8 May: The Romantic Road

“The Romantic Road” was a marketing campaign in the decade after WWII to attract tourists back to Bavaria. It was hugely successful, and today it was our turn!

We climbed on a very comfortable bus, glad to get out of a persistent drizzle. It seemed to take ages to get out of the Munich traffic, but we eventually made to our first stop, Harburg Castle.

Schloss Harburg is reputedly one of the oldest, largest and best preserved medieval castles in southern Germany. It survived sieges and battles, and belonged to the same family for 700 years.

It was a fascinating comparison with Hohensalzburg that we saw a few days ago. Well worth the visit.

Then back in the bus, and on to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This pretty little town still has a complete surrounding wall and medieval houses, but thankfully modern plumbing!!

There were a couple of highlights. First a great lunch - pork schnitzel and the local Franconian silvaner wine - which we were able to linger over. Des enjoyed the local delicacy, Schneeballen, “snowballs”, made of shortbread ribbons pressed into crunchy balls with an icing sugar coating.

Then a real eye-opener. The local St James church has a wooden sculptured altarpiece by Tilman Riemenschneider, the outstanding German wood carver of the late medieval period (as my art guru informed me!) Absolutely stunning.

In fact the whole church was amazing - everywhere you looked there was wood carving to die for. Plus original stained glass windows 56ft high! Apparently Riemenschneider started a wood carving school that lasted 300 years.

Another great day!Okumaya devam et