The Romantic Road in Germany is a holiday route from Würzburg to Füssen, and the association that runs it describes it as 29 towns and 460 kilometers, in operation since 1950.[1] This guide covers where it starts and ends, the association’s five-day car itinerary, where to pick up a car, how to follow the route, the environmental sticker rule and when the festivals run.
Where does the Romantic Road start and end?
The route starts in Würzburg and ends in Füssen. The 29 towns the association lists between them include Bad Mergentheim, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Dinkelsbühl, Nördlingen, Augsburg and Landsberg am Lech. Würzburg, Augsburg and Füssen have no page on this site. Frankfurt, Munich and Nuremberg do, but none of the three is one of the 29 towns on the association’s list.
The German National Tourist Board gives the length as about 400 kilometers, not 460. Its page says the route crosses the Tauber Valley, the Nördlinger Ries, the Lechfeld and the Pfaffenwinkel at the foot of the Alps, and finishes at King Ludwig’s fairytale castles.[2] This guide uses the association’s numbers, because the association is the body that runs the route.
Romantic Road itinerary: five days by car
The association publishes a car itinerary of 5 days and 4 nights. The table summarizes it from the association’s German page; the page gives no distances or drive times, so none are added here.
| Day | Route | What the itinerary names |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Würzburg to Bad Mergentheim | Würzburg and its Residence, a UNESCO World Heritage site; overnight in Bad Mergentheim |
| 2 | Bad Mergentheim to Rothenburg ob der Tauber | The Tauber valley, Weikersheim with its palace, Creglingen; Rothenburg ob der Tauber as the day’s destination |
| 3 | Rothenburg to Nördlingen | The Frankenhöhe, Schillingsfürst, Feuchtwangen, Dinkelsbühl; Nördlingen, which the itinerary calls the only town you can circle completely on its wall |
| 4 | Nördlingen, Augsburg, the Wies and Füssen | Augsburg in the morning; the Wies church in the Pfaffenwinkel; Füssen as the end of the route |
| 5 | Füssen and the royal castles | Neuschwanstein and, in fine weather, a boat trip on the Forggensee |
The itinerary also calls Rothenburg ob der Tauber the most romantic town in Germany and the Wies the most beautiful rococo church in Germany; those are the association’s descriptions, not ratings. It describes Füssen as Bavaria’s highest-lying town.
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Where should you pick up a rental car for the Romantic Road?
The association says a trip along the route is easy from the international airports in Munich and Frankfurt. By hire car, it says, you can reach Augsburg via the A 8 motorway, and from Frankfurt you take the A3 motorway to Würzburg and then follow the brown Romantische Strasse signs.[4] This site has pages for Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport, as well as the Frankfurt, Munich and Nuremberg city pages.
Nothing in the sources here gives distances between those airports and the two ends of the route, so check them on a map before you choose the pickup city. If you finish the route in a different city from where you started, ask the rental company at booking whether that is possible and what it involves. For rules that apply to any rental in the country, see the Germany country page.
How do you follow the route in a car?
The association says the Romantic Road is signposted continuously and without gaps in both directions, in line with the guidelines of the German Tourism Association. It adds that holiday routes are currently built into only a few navigation devices, so it advises following the brown tourist signs and not relying only on the navigation aid. That way, it says, you avoid well-developed busy main roads and drive a route through varied landscapes and small places.
Do you need an emissions sticker on the Romantic Road?
Only inside an environmental zone, an Umweltzone. The Umweltbundesamt, the German Environment Agency, says these are areas where only vehicles meeting certain exhaust standards may drive, and that since 2012 only vehicles with a green sticker may drive in the existing zones. It also says the stickers are valid in every environmental zone in Germany, not only in one city.[5]
The same page says driving in a zone without a sticker or an exemption is a regulatory offense, currently punished with a fine of 100 euros. It also says many German cities have already abolished their zones and that 35 remain, with a list and a map of the zones on its site. The sources here do not say which towns on the route have a zone, so check the list before the trip. Ask the rental company whether the car carries a sticker; what a rental car carries is not covered by these sources.
When is the best time to drive the Romantic Road?
Neither the association nor the tourist board names a best season, so this guide does not either. The German National Tourist Board says the route is known as Germany’s top destination for festivals and that from May until well into autumn there are open-air historical festivals. The association says the route offers a wealth of parks and gardens in early summer.
Check the dates of a festival you want to see before you book, because the sources give only the season, not dates. Festivals and gardens are a reason to pick a month; they say nothing about roads or traffic.
Planning the rest of the trip
The Romantic Road is one of several routes in this section. The Scottish loop is covered in the NC500 guide, the Irish coast in the Wild Atlantic Way guide and the Icelandic loop in the Ring Road guide. For what a permit for driving abroad is, read what an international driving permit is.
To compare this route with the other three, see best road trip routes in Europe by rental car.
