From Munich: Harburg Castle, Rothenburg & the Romantic Road

Head north from Munich through Bavaria on the Romantic Road — the scenic route that connects Bavaria's greatest medieval towns from Füssen in the south to Würzburg in the north. The guide introduces the concept of the Romantic Road: established as a tourist route in 1950 to revive postwar tourism, it follows the path of Roman roads and medieval trade routes through a landscape that escaped the worst of World War II bombing. The contrast with other German historic centres destroyed in the war — Dresden, Cologne, Nuremberg — makes Rothenburg's survival all the more extraordinary.

Harburg Castle rises from a sandstone spur above the Wörnitz River — a compact but remarkably complete complex of keep, towers, great hall, chapel, residential buildings and outer ward that has been continuously inhabited since 1150. The castle's extraordinary survival record is due partly to geography (it was never on a major military axis) and partly to diplomatic skill: its owners consistently managed to be on the winning side, or to negotiate successfully with occupying forces, through every conflict from the Thirty Years War to World War II. The Hohenstaufen emperors used it, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden probably stayed here during the Thirty Years War, and the House of Oettingen-Wallerstein has owned it since 1731. The guide takes visitors through the original rooms — the great hall, the prison tower, the Romanesque chapel and the treasury — all furnished with original contents spanning 800 years.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber sits on a plateau above the Tauber River, its complete circuit of medieval walls enclosing a town that looks almost exactly as it did in the 16th century. The walls — 2.4 kilometres of covered rampart walkway, punctuated by 42 towers and 6 major gates — are entirely walkable, giving a direct experience of medieval defensive architecture that almost no other European city can match. The guide covers the town's most famous story: the Master Draught of 1631, during the Thirty Years War, when Imperial General Tilly threatened to execute the entire town council unless someone could drink a 3.25-litre (nearly 6 pint) tankard of wine in one draught. Former Mayor Nusch reportedly achieved this feat, saving the town — the story is re-enacted daily by the town's clock mechanism on the Rathaus tower. Visit St James's Church to see the Holy Blood Altar by Tilman Riemenschneider (1505) — widely considered the greatest limewood carving in existence.