Welcome on board this Romantic Road Coach journey along the Romantic Road. We are delighted to have you aboard.

The route at a glance

Frankfurt am Main

Frankfurt am Main is the largest city in the Province of Hesse with just over 700,000 inhabitants. Initially founded by celtic tribes, the site was used by the Romans and later by Teutonic tribes, the Alemanni and the Franks.

The city grew rich by being a trading centre. Today Frankfurt is internationally famous for its exhibitions, especially the Frankfurt Book Fair and the International Motor Show.

The city is a major finance centre with several hundred banks including the German Federal Bank and the European Central Bank. Several of the the banks were founded in the 16th and 17th centuries. The founder of the Rothschild Bank came from Frankfurt.

Frankfurt is also a centre of the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries and chemical equipment manufacture.

Goethe, Germanys finest and best known author was born here and although his place of birth was destroyed in World War II, one can visit the reconstructed house.

The mediaeval centre of Frankfurt was almost completely destroyed in a bombing raid on 22 March 1944.

St Pauls Church is regarded as the birthplace of German democracy. It was where the short lived German National assembly met in 1848-9. Between 1562 and 1792 Frankfurt Cathedral was used for the coronations of the Holy Roman Emperor.

The Römer next to the cathedral is a reconstructed city block modelled on the original mediaeval houses, now used as city hall.

In addition visitors can find excellent modern architecture, such as the Stadttheater (City Theatre), the Opernhaus (Opera House) and many skyscrapers like the 279m high Commerzbank Tower. Frankfurt is often referred to as Mainhattan in the German press, derived from the similarity of its skyline with New Yorks.

Frankfurt Zoo is well worth visiting, as is the Städel art gallery with paintings from the 14th to 20th century.

Romantic Road

The Romantic Road is the oldest tourist route in the world, begun in 1900 as German Tourist Route One. After the turmoils of the Second World War and the Nazi terror which destroyed Germanys good name, the mayors of Würzburg, Rothenburg, Augsburg and Füssen got together to discuss what they could do to renew their shattered communities and give their citizens hope of a future? They were convinced that the countryside between River Main and the Alps showed the fairytale romantic side of Germany, but the original nationalistic name had to go. It was changed to the Romantic Road in January 1950. From then onwards this road between the international airports in Frankfurt and Munich in the American Sector of a divided Germany became the visiting card of a new peaceful Germany.

Aschaffenburg

We are passing Aschaffenburg with 68 000 inhabitants. Its landmark is the Johannisburg one of the first Renaissance buildings in Germany built between 1605-14. The distinctive building in red sandstone has a tower on each corner and houses works of art from the Bavarian state painting collection.

Note

Passengers can buy food and drink for the bus trip at every stop underway, though there are maybe restrictions on Sundays. By the way you can buy a glass of wine, a beer or a soft drink from the bus driver. These drinks are all locally sourced on the Romantic Road. It is quite usual in Germany to drink beer or wine while travelling by train and bus.

It is difficult to be hungry for long in Germany. People breakfast well and evening meals are extensive. Portions are large. Underway there are a wide range of delights available, both German and international snacks.

Typically German are:

- "Butterbrezen", salty buttered pretzel.

- "Salzstangen", long thin salty white bread rolls, with or without butter.

- "Wurst- oder Käsebrötchen": Sandwiches on bread rolls perhaps made while you wait with German sausage, cold cuts (beef, pork and turkey) or cheese. Usually made with a salad garnish.

- "Fleischkäsebrötchen": the classic German cure for hunger in case you're feeling peckish. A white bread roll with warm or cold Fleischkäse (Spam or processed meat) with or without mustard.

- "Bratwurstsemmel": The Franconian national dish is a fried or grilled pork sausage in a bread roll.

- "Schneeballen: "Snowball" a type of cookie or biscuit. Strips of cookie or biscuit dough are wrapped around each other to create a ball. This is deep fried and dusted with caster or icing sugar.

Cakes and pastries. There is no end of choice in most bakers.

Bus Stop Information

The Romantic Road Bus is a Hop On - Hop Off service. The journey can be interrupted as often as desired, just tell the driver and let him endorse your ticket! For your information many German bakeries and butchers sell made up sandwiches or will make them for you as a snack.

Spessart

We are now passing the Spessart, one of Germanys biggest forests, mainly beech and oak. The forest is mentioned in the Nibelungenlied, a famous epic poem, as Spechtswald - Woodpecker Wood.

The main trade route between Frankfurt and Rome as well as the Thurn und Taxis Post Road from Paris to Prague, built in 1665, led through Spessart. The area was infamous for highwaymen and inspired Wilhelm Hauff to write his historical novel Wirtshaus im Spessart The Inn in Spessart.

The very building was on the site where the Spessart Autobahn Service Area now stands. It was demolished in the 1960s when this Autobahn was built. The Spessart is now a nature reserve and a favourite hiking area.

Würzburg

We are arriving in Würzburg.

Würzburg has about 125 000 inhabitants and was awarded the the European Prize by the Council of Europe for its encouragement of European unity in 1973. It is now known as Europastadt, European City Würzburg. The city is twinned with a number of European and international cities, including Otsu in Japan, Rochester/New York, Salamanca/Spain, Caen/France and Dundee/Scotland.

In the seventh century Würzburg was a Franconian duchy. Kilian, Kolonat und Totnan, three Scots Irish monks came and brought Christianity to Franconia. The three monks were murdered in 689. However the Marienkirche on Marienberg was consecrated in 706, followed in 742 by the consecration of the first bishop by St Bonifatius. Pilgrims came to the graves of the three martyred monks, who by this time had been made saints.

In 1168 Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa Red Beard appointed the Würzburg bishops as Dukes of Franconia. The ducal bishops were thus the secular and religious rulers of the area.

Two notable artists lived and worked in Würzburg; Tilmann Riemenschneider (1460-1531) was a woodcarver and sculptor and only eighteen years old when he arrived in Würzburg. He married four times and thus became very wealthy. He became Mayor of Würzburg, but in 1525 during the German Peasants War he supported the peasants against the nobility and after the defeat of the peasant side he was jailed and questioned using torture. After his release he received no more commissions and died a poor broken man.

Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753) on the other hand was one of the most important architects of the Baroque. He came as a tradesman bell founder to Würzburg and joined the ducal bishops artillery regiment where he learnt to be an architect. His major works are the Residenz and the Käppele, the Maria pilgrimage church.

Würzburg Old Town

You can see the historic city centre of Würzburg to the front with its many towers. The Old Bridge across the Main is one of the citys landmarks. This bridge is one of the oldest stone bridges in Germany with twelve large saints figures dating from the eighteenth century.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-Rays in the Röntgen House there.

The Marienberg Fortress and the Käppele, the Maria pilgrimage church, tower over the city among the vineyards.

Würzburg Residence

We will now have a short photo stop at the Würzburg Residenz.

The Residenz was commissioned by the ducal bishop of Würzburg, designed and built by Balthasar Neumann. The building has over three hundred rooms, the court church and the worlds largest ceiling fresco by the Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo over the Grand Staircase. The carved slab at the entrance to the garden marks one end of the Romantic Road.

The Residenz cellar contains one of Germanys largest and oldest wineries in the State Court Cellar. The vaults offer storage to up to 1.4 million Litres of wine.

The Residenz has been called the pinnacle of chateau design. Napoleon was here twice. He was not a man to mince words and called the Residenz the finest parsonage in Europe. The Franconia Fountain in front of the building shows an allegorical Franconia high above the statues of three famous Würzburg men: The mediaeval minstrel Walther von der Vogelweide, Tilmann Riemenschneider and Matthias Nithart Grünewald, a painter.

The Residenz has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1982.

Note

Würzburg Residence UNESCO World Heritage Site

There are WC (Restrooms, public toilets) near the entrance booths to the Residenz and at the entrance to the ducal gardens on the left of the Residenz. The official start of the Romantic Road is marked by a stele (a vertical column). Entry into the ducal gardens is free of charge.

Würzburg on the river Main

Würzburg is the northern end of the Romantic Road which was opened in 1950 to connect the River Main to the Bavarian Alps. The Romantic Road is the best known and liked tourist route in Germany, the successor to the former German Tourist Route One and thus the oldest tourist route in the world.

Würzburg lies on the River Main which rises in the Fichtel Mountains in Upper Franconia and flows into the Rhine by Mainz. It is about 500km long. The vineyards along the Main produce Franconian Wine, a dry white which is bottled in distinctive bottles called Bocksbeutel whose use is limited to these wines and those from the Tauber Valley.

There are many Wine Fests from May to October here. Franconia is one of the smallest but best regarded wine growing regions of Germany.

Giebelstadt

We are passing through the fertile high plateau above the Main with fields of cereals and sugar beet. One of Germanys biggest sugar refineries is to be found in nearby Ochsenfurt.

Giebelstadt was an important German airforce base in World War II. After the war it became a US Airforce base. It is used as a civil aerodrome these days.

Bad Mergentheim

We are now arriving in Bad Mergentheim with 22 500 inhabitants.

These days it is the health resort on the Romantic Road and has become a centre of competence in Germany for the treatment of diabetes. The Romans knew about the healing springs of Bad Mergentheim, but then they were lost and ignored for almost 2000 years. In 1826 a shepherd discovered the springs and wellness tourism took off.

Between 1525 and 1809 the town was the headquarters of the Order of Teutonic Knights, founded in 1128 to minister to sick German pilgrims in Jerusalem.

After the collapse of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Order returned to Europe to fight against the Slavs. They conquered Prussia and the Baltic countries. In 1525 Martin Luther suggested they abandon their religious foundations and become a dukedom. This was the birth of Prussia. Some of the Knights who had kept their Catholic faith retreated to Bad Mergentheim. Napoleon broke up the order in 1805.

The Bad Mergentheim Wild Animal Park is nearby. This has a very good selection of European wildlife, including bears, very scary bats, owls and wolves, a farm with goats, pigs, piglets, cattle and horses, and a pantry full of mice. It is well worth visiting especially at feeding time.

Tauber Valley

The Tauber Valley is a well known wine growing area with many vineyards. Whereas the Main Valley is well known for its white wines, the Tauber Valley is home to Franconian red wines, for example Tauberschwarz, that only grows here and Schwarzriesling. The wine produced in the Franconian section of the Tauber Valley may also be bottled in the distinctive Bocksbeutels. Wine growing areas can be found around Tauberbischofsheim, Beckstein and Markelsheim.

The Bocksbeutel have been used for Franconian wine for over 300 years. The bottle design is much older. They are derived from from military water canteens that were flattened to make them easier to carry in luggage or on a person, plus these bottles cannot roll away. Normally a Bocksbeutel holds three quarters of a Litre of wine, enough for three glasses.

We have a special bottling in small souvenir Bocksbeutels on board which you can purchase from the driver.

Weikersheim

Our next stop is in Weikersheim, a small town.

The chateau in Weikersheim was built around 1600 on the site of a moated castle by the zu Hohenlohe family. The park and garden were laid out in 1709 and is one of the prettiest Baroque gardens in Germany. In 1796 the last member of the Weikersheim branch of the Hohenlohe family died and no other distant family members seemed to want to live there permanently. The house stayed empty until 1967 when it was bought by the province of Baden-Württemberg. It is now used as a centre for musical education and there are concerts in the Ritter Saal during the summer.

Note

Weikersheim marketplace

There is a short tour of the castle and the park for a special low price. There is a bakery right by the bus stop. WC in the castle entrance court and behind the town hall (fee charged).

Röttingen

We are now travelling through Röttingen an ancient wine growing community. The European flag flying on the Baroque Town Hall reminds us that this was the first community in Germany to be declared a European City. This title is bestowed on communities that have contributed to European understanding.

Röttingen has a 2km long sundial trail. Follow this and you will learn a lot about the traditions and how sundials function. The ancient Greeks, for example, used a stick stuffed vertically in the ground. Sundials of every design line the whole route.

The Elbe Company on the edge of the town manufactures equipment for childrens playgrounds such as slides and climbing frames, which are exported worldwide.

Creglingen

We will shortly reach Creglingen. The town was founded by the Alemanni and has a fine compact historic centre with sections of the former town walls, the chateau and many half-timbered houses. However the absolute highlight is the altar carved by Tilmann Riemenschneider between 1505 and 1510 in the Herrgottskirche, the Church of our Lord. This was built outside the town at the spot where a ploughman found a perfect consecrated wafer when he was ploughing. The Dukes of Brauneck had the chapel built on the spot where the ploughman made his discovery. In the late middle ages the chapel was a pilgrimage church. The altar is 7m high and the middle section shows Maria being transported into heaven. The Apostles are shown below her. The side pieces shows scenes from her life.

Further attractions are the Thimble Museum, opposite the Herrgottskirche and a Jewish Museum.

Dettwang

The tiny fortified church in Dettwang possesses an altar by Tilmann Riemenschneider.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Our next stop in Rothenburg ob der Tauber is at one of the highlights of the Romantic Road. Rothenburg has about 12 000 inhabitants. ob der Tauber indicates the settlement lies above the

River Tauber.

One of the most heart stopping moments in the long history of the former Free Imperial City is the Legend of the Meistertrunk:

During the Thirty Years War Rothenburg was a member of the Protestant Union. At the end of October 1631 General Graf Tilly besieged the town with 60 000 experienced troops. After three days the town fell into the hands of Tilly and his men, followed by looting and pillage. The town councillors were to be put to death and the town destroyed. At this moment somebody offered Graf Tilly a five UK or 6 US pint mug full of wine. He agreed to spare the town and councillors if one of them could empty the pot without drawing breath. Up stepped Georg Nusch, a former mayor and swigged the lot in one long swallow. He survived this feat and lived another 37 years dying at 80 years of age. Tilly kept his promise and the town and the councillors were spared.

You can relive this tale several times daily on the Marktplatz. The figures in the windows next to the clock on the Ratsherrentrinkstube, now the Tourist Information Office, show the story every hour between 11 am and 3 pm, as well as 9 and 10 in the evening.

At the end of World War II Rothenburg was bombed and 40% of the town was destroyed. In March 1945 when US troops were about to take the town using artillery, the U.S Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy who knew about the historic importance and beauty of Rothenburg, ordered US Army General Devers not to use artillery in taking the town. After a parley with the Americans the German commander Major Thömmes gave up the town, ignoring Hitlers order that all towns should fight to the end and thereby saved it from total destruction.

You can celebrate Christmas all the year round in Rothenburg. Käthe Wohlfahrts Weihnachtsdorf, Christmas Village, with its Christmas Museum and 30 000 Christmas decorations warms the heart of any fan of the Yuletide season. Guests from all over the world swarm under festive lights through this kingdom of anticipation and gain an authentic impression of how Christmas in Germany is celebrated.

Schillingsfürst

Schillingsfürst is a small village on the steep slopes of the Franconian Heights between the Tauber and Wörnitz Valleys with the large chateau of the Dukes of Hohenlohe which was built between 1705 and 1740. It has 70 rooms with 365 windows.

You will notice that the chateau is on the highest point of the village and so the water supply was formerly a problem. In 1702 as part of the preparations for the rebuilding of an earlier castle an oxen powered pump was built. This was in use for 200 years. The pump delivered 528 UK or 624 US gallons per hour. You can visit the pump house museum.

Franconian Heights

We are now crossing the 550m high Franconian Heights. These form a watershed. Streams on the southern side flow into the River Wörnitz, then into the Danube and finally the Black Sea. To the north the waters flow into the River Tauber, the Main, the Rhine and finally the North Sea.

Feuchtwangen

We are now reaching Feuchtwangen, first mentioned in 817. Its one of the oldest places on the Romantic Road. Legend has it that Charlemagne went hunting here, got lost and a pigeon showed him the way out of the woods. He was so grateful that he had a monastery built on the site of the miraculous happening.

Feuchtwangen became a Free Imperial City in 1241. This status came to an end in 1376 when the town was pledged to the Dukes of Nuremberg. During the Thirty Years War between 1618 and 1648 various armies plundered the town on different occasions.

Since 1949 the town has hosted the Kreuzgangspiele - the Cloister Theatre Festival between May and August.

The 13th century Collegiate Church with its romanesque cloister is a landmark of the town. Its neighbour the Café am Kreuzgang is a paradise for the sweet toothed, offering cakes, chocolates and confectionary. It is one of the oldest and most traditional coffee houses on the Romantic Road.

Feuchtwangen has one of the nine Bavarian gambling casinos. Guests can choose between classical games of hazard and slot games. Its now the second most visited casino in Bavaria.

Dinkelsbühl

We are now running into the former Free Imperial City of Dinkelsbühl.

The town was founded by dinkel growers more than a 1000 years ago and was mentioned in official documents as early as 928. Dinkel is called Spelt in English. Dinkelbühls name means a hill on

which corn is grown. Emperor Barbarossa gave the town to his son as a wedding present in the 12th century. He built the town walls.

During the Thirty Years War the town was saved from destruction by children. A Swedish army led by Lieutenant Sperreuth was about to put the inhabitants to the sword and burn the town to the ground, when the towns children led by Lore the flaxen haired daughter of the Constable approached the Lieutenant. He had just lost his young son and so could not bring himself to destroy the town. This event is celebrated every July with the Kinderzeche Festival.

The towns landmark building is St Georges Minster, one of the biggest late gothic churches in Southern Germany. The statue in front of the church is dedicated to the memory of Christoph Schmidt who wrote the German Carol: Ihr Kinderlein kommet Oh, come, little children.

This area along the River Wörnitz is famous for carp breeding and as well, home to many many storks. You can see their nests on the roofs of the town halls in Nördlingen, Dinkelsbühl and Feuchtwangen.

Limes Roman border fortifications

The Romantic Road crosses the line of the Limes around here, the defensive line of the Roman Empire against the Teutonic tribes. Between Donauwörth and Füssen the Romantic Road roughly follows the line of the 2000 year old Via Claudia Augusta, a Roman trading route.

49 degrees latitude

Although there is no sign, we are actually crossing the 49th parallel and are therefore on the same latitude as Karlsruhe, Paris and the US-Canadian border and just north of Ulan Bator in Mongolia. This is the border between Middle Franconia and Swabian Bavaria.

Wallerstein

The village on the hill in front of us is Wallerstein with a large chateau belonging to the Dukes of Öttingen-Wallerstein a noble family. The family owns four chateaus and castles and in addition the local brewery. This is one of the 1600 Bavarian breweries which are responsible for about a quarter of the world production of beer.

There is a plague pillar in the middle of the main street. This was erected in gratitude for the end of the epidemic in 1720. The swellings on the pillar symbolise Bubonic Plague. The three figures at the base show Saints Antony, Roch und Sebastian three aides against the Black Death. The figure of the Madonna stands at the top of the pillar. This is a copy of the plague pillar in Vienna.

Romantic Road Zwickel Bier is brewed in the Ducal Brewery Öttingen-Wallerstein. Its a full bodied unfiltered light cellar beer, not too strong with yeasty overtones. This beer is brewed especially for us. You can purchase one from the driver to try on board or take home as a souvenir.

Nördlingen

Daniel, Nordlingens 90m high church tower can be seen from afar. If you are prepared to climb 365 steps, you will be rewarded with a view of ninety-nine church towers.

The town was described as a Carolingian royal court in a document from 898. It has had a ten day Whitsuntide fair since 1219. This was one of the most important trade fairs in Germany. The almost circular city walls were built in the 14th century and strengthened and improved in the 16th and 17th centuries. They are about 5km long with five gates, eleven towers and two bastions.

Nördlingen, Rothenburg and Dinkelsbühl are the only walled cities on the Romantic Road.

City towers were formerly used to keep watch for approaching enemies. There are now only two towers in Germany that are regularly occupied. Theres one in Münster and the other is here, Daniel in Nördlingen. A tower watcher lives in a room at the top of the tower, as does another employee of the town, a calico cat called Wendelstein. The cat appeared one day and scared pigeons off. It is paid in cat food, has a heath insurance package and is very popular with visitors.

Nördlingen was the town shown in the film of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971, when in the final scenes, the glass elevator is floating over a town.

Our bus will stop for few minutes near the historic town hall, a few steps away from the impressive St Georges Church, a magnum opus of south German Gothic.

Another place of interest in the town is the Bavarian Railway Museum with over a hundred locomotives, carriages and wagons.

At weekends between April and October there are steam excursions on the railway line from Nördlingen via Dinkelsbühl to Feuchtwangen and return.

Nördlinger Ries

If you look round you will notice we are travelling across a circular plain bordered by hills. This is the Nördlinger Ries, a 25km diameter depression in the Franconian and Swabian Jura. It was originally thought that this crater was of volcanic origin. In 1960 Eugene Shoemaker and a colleague showed

that the depression was caused by meteorite impact fifteen million years ago. The resulting depression changed the way that rivers flowed in what became SW Bavaria and initially the depression filled up with water to form a lake. The soil in the Nördlinger Ries is the mud and organic material that fell to the bottom of the lake. Finally the River Wörnitz cut its way through the hills in the south of the lake. The lake drained to yield a fertile plain where cereals, potatoes and sugar beet thrive. There were already settlements in the Stone Age. Recent archaeological findings suggest that people lived here over 13 000 years ago.

Harburg

Harburg castle towers over the Wörnitz Valley. It was built between the 12th and 18th centuries above the strategically important gap in the Jura Hills. Originally the fortress belonged to the Staufers. After 1295 it passed into the ownership of the Counts of Öttingen, later the Dukes of Öttingen-Wallerstein. It includes a museum with work by Veit Stoß und Tilmann Riemenschneider. The largest private library in Germany with over 140 000 volumes was to be found here until February 1980. Before the library could be sold sold to the United States the Bavarian government stepped in and bought them all for 22 million Euro. The collection is now part of the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

Actually the mighty castle of Harburg is not only a tourist attraction. Harburg Castle along with the Baroque Church of Saint Coloman near Schwangau is one of the most popular places to get married on The Road for Loving Couples, to quote one of the original suggested names for the Romantic Road.

Donauwörth

The next town on the Romantic Road we pass is Donauwörth. You can see both churches, the 15th century gothic parish church with its tower containing one of the heaviest bells in Bavaria. The Holy Cross Church with its 18th century yellow tower is where Maria von Brabant is buried. Her husband, Ludwig the Strict, ordered her beheading in 1256, as he suspected her of adultery. She was completely innocent. Ludwig was thoroughly castigated and built this church to appease for his crime. This did not help poor Maria much.

The first settlement in Donauwörth was at the spot where the River Wörnitz runs into the Danube. A ford in the fifth century was followed by a bridge before 1000 AD. It and its successors were destroyed thirty times by flood and war.

Because of the bridge the settlement grew in importance and was elevated to a city. It was an important link in the trans European trade route between Norway and Italy. The city received market, mint and customs rights. However when the King Emperor needed money he sold the city to the Dukes of Bavaria and the Fugger Company from Augsburg.

Käthe Kruse the world famous doll maker was born in Donauwörth. In 1905 her daughter wanted a doll for Christmas, so Käthe created the Sand Baby which soon sold like hot cakes. These dolls are now collectors items and sell for exorbitant prices.

Donau

We cross the Danube near Donauwörth. The Danube is the second longest river in Europe. It starts in Donaueschingen in the Black Forest, flows through ten countries and four capital cities: Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava and Belgrade to reach the Black Sea. The River Lech flows into the Danube, from the south in Rain near here.

Energien

Renewable energy is a central plank of German energy policy. After the incident in Fukushima the German government decided to shut down the nuclear reactors in the country. Between the Main and the Alps there are many biogas plants, solar energy plants and wind turbines. Do not be surprised to see 1000s of maize fields but few cows, because maize is used to generate alternative supplies of energy.

Gablingen

Near Gablingen we pass a former US early warning facility.

Augsburg

Augsburg where we will arrive shortly, is the third biggest city in Bavaria with 265 000 inhabitants.

The city was founded in 15BC by Caesar Augustus. It was the capital of the Roman province of Rhaetia for 450 years and is the second oldest city in Germany after Trier. It was a Free Imperial City for over 500 years and the seat of a bishop for over 1200 years. Its university is much younger. It was founded in 1970.

In the 16th century Augsburg was the richest town in the world, because of two families, the Welser and the Fuggers. The Welser were traders who sent ships to the Americas. The Fuggers were weavers and later bankers to royalty, the nobility and the church.

Jakob Fugger, called Jakob the Rich founded the oldest social settlement in the world, the Fuggerei. It is a town within the city with its own church and school, 53 houses with 106 apartments with rents of 88 Eurocents annually. However to obtain a tenancy one must be Catholic, born in Augsburg, poor, married and have a good reputation. The inhabitants must be at home by 10 pm. If

not they have to pay a fine of 50 Eurocents. Guests can learn much about these two trading dynasties in the Fugger and Welser Museum.

Augsburg is the birthplace of a number of famous men, including two mediaeval painters: Hans Holbein the elder and Hans Holbein the younger. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts father Leopold was born here as was Rudolf Diesel who invented the Diesel motor further developed by the MAN company, and Berthold Brecht, the playwright.

Friedberg

We are passing Friedberg where Ludwig the Strict built a castle in 1257. The town grew up around this. The castle was built because of the trade in salt which was an important source of revenues.

Nazi concentration camp

The NAZIs built their first concentration camp in Dachau near Munich. Over six million victims were murdered by the NAZIs in the twelve years of terror amongst them Jews, Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, political opponents and dissenters.

Nymphenburg Palace

We are now crossing the Nymphenburg Canal. The white building in the background is Schloss Nymphenburg, built in 1664 as a summer residence by the Bavarian Royal Family and enlarged in 1715. We can highly recommend the Gallery of Beauties built by King Ludwig I, who was an art lover. He had to abdicate in 1848 because of his affair with Lola Montez, a dancer. Ludwig II was born here on 25th August 1845.

Munich

We are now reaching the centre of Munich, the Bavarian capital with 1.4 million inhabitants.

The city was founded by Benedictine monks. The citys coat of arms shows a monk. The city owes its worldwide fame to the Bavarian kings.

The most famous was King Ludwig II, also known as the Dream King. He was born on 25th August 1845 in Schloss Nymphenburg and found dead on 13th June 1886 in Lake Starnberg. He built Schloss Neuschwanstein, Linderhof und Herrenchiemsee. He withdrew into his own private world and was not really interested in affairs of state. He invited Richard Wagner to his court to direct his operas.

The last Bavarian king Ludwig III abdicated in 1918 at the end of the first World War.

The NAZIs opened their first party headquarters in Munich in 1920. After an ineffective start Hitler was imprisoned and reorganised the party on his release.

More than 10 000 buildings were destroyed in 66 raids during World War II. The population declined from 840 000 to 409 000.

Munich is now the third largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. It is a leading commercial and manufacturing centre.

Life in Munich is different to life elsewhere in Germany. The Bavarians are traditionally minded, love Fasching and the October Fest. During the October Fest more than 6.4 million visitors drink 6.7 million Litres of beer, eat 114 head of cattle and 58 calves.

Famous local dishes are Weiswürst, Knödel - dumplings, roast pork and beef. The most famous beer hall is the Hofbräuhaus.

End

Ladies and Gentlemen we are now approaching our final stop and would like to bid you farewell and sincerely thank you on behalf of the whole Romantic Road Coach team. Please check before you leave the bus that you have not left any items behind.

We are pleased that you have chosen to travel the Romantic Road with us. When you arrive home with a multitude of happy memories, we hope you will pass on your experiences to your friends and relations and recommend our Romantic Road Coach. Any suggestions of how we can better organise the trip or criticisms? Please let us know, your feedback is most useful.

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