Bus Journey down 'The Romantic Road'

Small little inset area in this house

Originally I booked the Romantic Road bus tour as a means of getting from Frankfurt to Munich, and seeing some of the countryside. Of course, I missed the bus in Frankfurt so I also missed a couple of the small towns on the route but loved Rothenburg. Today, after visiting the Crime & Punishment Museum in Rothenburg, I was able to get the bus that went on for the rest of my bespoke tour.

Dumb moment: As mentioned in a previous post, I've been really thirsty so I bought a large bottle of orange drink to have on the bus. Almost as soon as we left, the bottle fell over. When I picked it up, I absentmindedly opened it for a drink -- forgetting that it was highly carbonated. It shot all over the place! I cleaned up the seat and my clothes as well as I could with the few napkins I had and changed seats. At a later break, when everyone was off the bus, I got towels and water from the bathroom and cleaned the sticky mess off the floor.

Charming little town of Dinkelsbuhl

It was a nice drive in the bus and reminded me of being home. As a matter of fact, I'm reminded of Wisconsin since I got into Germany. In this case, I'm seeing wind turbines and fields of solar panels as we drive.

Our first stop was another walled city -- Dinkelsbuhl -- for about 45 minutes and I wandered around a bit. This was another old-world little German towns that has retained it's charm and beauty.

The statue in the inset of the house

The next stop (Nordlinger) was when I was able to get off the bus and get the necessary things to clean up the mess I mentioned earlier. This is really a great bus route; there are recorded talks and announcements about the towns, including one regarding an area we passed through that had been hit with a huge meteorite. This bus is full of Japanese tourists so the announcements are first in English, then in Japanese, but not in German at all!

When we stopped in Augsburg, I ran into a grocery store and got a yummy liverwurst sandwich and small bottle of wine. The wine wasn't even remotely as good as that in Rothenburg. Wish I had some of that!

Miscellany:

• Lots of roundabouts on this road
• Petrol is €1,47.9 -- I'm guessing that's per liter.
• Japanese ladies in front of me on the bus have Rick Steves' 2014 Germany book. 
• Sounds like the temp at home was cold today for Alex's soccer game (43).  It was a bit warmer here (60s), but rainy again.
• The gardens here are beautiful -- lovely flowers and lots of vegetables. I saw flowers growing in a field -- clearly for professional reasons. Lots of people are growing big hydrangeas, and there were fruit trees everywhere in Rothenburg:  apples, pears, plums.

We arrived in Hohenschwangau around 8:30, a bit later than expected, right to the Hotel Muller. Now this is a hotel! People at the reception desk could not have been nicer or more helpful -- they got me all set to visit Neuschwanstein Castle at 11 a.m. to beat the crowds that come in on buses.