Bavarious Castles Road Trip

BAVARIAN ROAD TRIP — THE ROMANTIC ROAD

After getting our fill of beer and Munich, it was time to put some miles (kilometers) on our Bavarian Castle Pass and explore the “Romantic Road,” a small roadway from Füssen to Würzburg connecting small farming towns and rural villages across Bavaria. Dozens of castles pepper the route from the Austrian alps to the winemaking regions further north.  

We had planned the road trip just in time for the weather to turn from an unseasonable 80º to  a very seasonable 40º with rain with a chance of head colds.  We picked up our rental car with one afternoon of predicted sun left, ready for the race against the weather to see the most famous castle in last bits of sunshine. Enterprise had no maps, so we set off with a naïve confidence in German road signs, which led us to Sarzberg for a lakeside drive and a quick pitstop to get a map from a hesitant Avis employee.  We stumbled upon an Audi Q3 launch event , which was thrilling for half of us.  Then it was on to Neuschawnstein, the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland.  [See Best Sights]

We enjoyed the little city of Füssen next door to Neuschwanstein, window shopping cuckoo clock and Leiderhosen shops. The next morning, the mountains dusted with snow from a storm the previous night, we took a shortcut through Austria to visit another of Ludwig’s palaces.

Although it was storming, driving through the Alps was jaw-droppingly beautiful as the road hugged the edge of an Alpine lake. The storm broke and we arrived at the small but amazing Linderhof Palace. The building had ornate bedrooms, entertaining halls, a dining room table that rose up through the floor from the servant’s kitchen, 600L heated bathtub (a big deal for the late 18^th century), and a manmade ‘sea grotto’ theater with Bavaria’s first power generator to provide energy for lighting color changes and wave machine to stage Wagner’s operas…all for one man. King Ludwig was a recluse and never had a single guest at his palace. He also never allowed his servants to look him in the eye.

We continued onto our AirBNB in Augsburg, Bavaria’s 3^rd largest city. We neglected to see that the apartment didn’t have a shower, just a sink and a toilet. Our host was extremely friendly and after some welcome cocktails, took us to a spa for locals just a few blocks away where we could use the saunas, pool and shower, all for about $5. Lots of friendly older Bavarian men were very friendly and it made for a weird and memorable experience.  We were tired the next morning from staying up late with our fun and friendly host, and left the apartment determined and obligated to explore his home city. After the rain turned to hail, we got back in the car, put our seat warmers on high and went north to follow the end of the Romantic Road.

The bad weather was restricted to the city limits. 20 minutes away, we found sunshine, sunflower farms, and medieval villages with a castle on top of every high peak we saw. We followed the route to a city called Nördlinden which dated back to 1600 and was built inside a meteor crater. It’s the only city in Germany with its fortification walls completely intact, which is exciting for tourists to walk the entire loop.

The last couple days, we stayed in towns we’d only learned the names of minutes before booking. In Ebelbach, we stayed at a Monastery turned hotel and joined the locals at their tiny Oktoberfest in the basement. In Kallzmunz, we missed the hotel because we’d passed through the city in the time in took to turn on our map light.

At the end of the trip, we found ourselves pressed for time to return the rental car, so we left the Romantic Road and onto the much loved German Autobahn. Driving the autobahn is a real luxury – you save a ton of time and literally burn through lot of money. Our Volkswagen Polo drove surprisingly well and easily pushed 100 mph, but we used a half tank of gas in under a half hour.  After the conversion, gas is just under $8 a gallon in Germany. We hadn’t anticipated quite how expensive the road trip would quickly become, so giving up the car was a relief!

Best times/Panic Attacks

We took the Autobahn for about 10 minutes one morning to reconnect with the Romantic Road. In that 10 minutes, the 115km left on our tank dropped to 13km. We figured we’d fill up at the next gas station we saw.  10km then 8km came and went as we coasted in neutral through village after village. We found a man walking down the street, and through exaggerated gestures and pointing, we learned the next gas station was in a town 5km away, exactly the same distance we had left on our tank.  When we coasted into town, we stopped to ask exactly where the gas station was.  “Auto gas?” he asked.  “YES,” we said excited that we had communicated. He thought for a couple of minutes and said he couldn’t think of any stations in the area. We didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt and continued on and found a gas station a few yards away. We later learned that “auto gas” is “compressed natural gas” in Germany.

We hiked half hour to the bottom of the hill at Neuschwanstein just before closing, only to realize that we had left our backpack with camera and laptop in a locker at the top. We drove up a road reserved for carriages and people on foot as they left the castle, but fortunately there was a commercial shoot going on at the top so people assumed we were part of the crew.  Robin took the locker key and ran back into the castle. The bag check clerk just happened to see Robin’s key in her hand as she left for the day. She escorted Robing back to the bag check and scolded her the whole way for how late it was

Best sights:

Neuschwanstein is the poster castle for Bavaria, and is the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle.  It was built by Bavaria’s “Mad” King Ludwig II, who had to stop construction on this (his third) castle because he had put the state into multi-billion dollar debt. We were a bit skeptical that it could live up to the hype, but when it came into view, David was compelled to shout expletives out the car window.  It’s a 20 minute walk up a forested hill to the castle, but then you turn a corner and then, bam, the castle is directly in front of you.  The tour was a bit hurried but a lot of fun – Ludwig dedicated the castle to Richard Wagner, so each room tells the story of one of his operas.  Also, Ludwig’s favorite animal was a swan, so there were a LOT of them. Including a swan faucet that vomits tap water into your hands.  Ludwig was declared “mentally unfit” to rule and died the next day, after only spending 170 or so days in the castle. His death is a mystery. 

Best tips:

Road signs in Germany can be confusing.  Take some time to learn what road signs mean before starting a road trip. A white circle with a red outline means entry is not permitted, while a blue circle, with a red outline and red X through it means no entry. We ended up on a pedestrian road in Germany’s oldest city that narrowed to barely the width of a car as a result of not knowing what signs meant.