Rothenburg ob Der Trauber to Harburg Schwafen

Day 5

Rothenburg ob Der Trauber to Harburg Schwafen via Dinkelsbuhl, Germany

Another peaceful night’s sleep, woken by intermittent rain which looked as if it was in for the day.

Our current plan is to follow the Romantic Road on the no. 25 road. This route includes old medieval towns you may not know about otherwise.

So, after a quick visit to the Aldi next door we set off for Dinkelsbuhl we can’t say it without a childish snigger . This road is much quieter and less busy than our previous days journeys. It was getting frenetic with the amount of HGV’s we were constantly trying to pass and of course the vista isn’t much to look at. The Romantic Road takes you through small villages and agricultural land, spotting the odd deer here and there was a highlight.

Dinkelsbuhl is another medieval walled town, a lot bigger and to be honest, not as charming as Rothenburg ODT.

It was hard to find a cafe or restaurant that looked open and was not as pretty as previous places. The entrance gates are very imposing and to our surprise have storks living on the rooftops, they were also inside the walled town too. What a treat, we hadn’t seen storks since Portugal last year. Walking up through the cobbled streets you could hear their distinctive clacking of bills over the vehicles driving by.

Dinkelsbuhl is colourful, the properties fronting the main drags are well kept and have some lovely spring displays outside.

The main story of Dinkelsbuhl is that during the 30 Years War, the Swedes reached the town and for fear of them killing everyone, a child’s nanny took the local children to see the Swedish commander to ask for mercy. One of the boys reminded him of his son, lost to illness and so he spared the town.

Leaving Dinkelsbuhl we drove on to Harburg for our night stop. This is a great spot, right next to a lovely old castle. See pics. Meg was able to go for a well-deserved run off the lead as we walked around the outside. The path down to the town was very steep so we satisfied ourselves with aerial views of the lovely river that encompasses an island and has 3 weirs! It must be very noisy for the homes along the banks .