Germany 2025 - Romance on the Road

 Monday 6th October - Nordlingen

The group split up today and went their separate ways.  We were the only ones heading south, the others were all heading westish and had crossings back to the UK at the weekend.  We had another 8 nights left, 4 in Germany then 4 in France.

The day was miserable and the next didn’t look good either, but the weather might change on Wednesday.  

Our first stop was Dinkelsbuhl where the town wall is almost completely preserved, and, with its towers and gates, surrounds one of the best preserved medieval towns in Germany. As a homeowner in Dinkelsbühl, you can only select from a given colour palette if you want to give your house a new look.  Practically all the houses are between 200 and 600 years old. Nearly half of Rothenburg was destroyed in World War II, while Dinkelsbuehl survived both World Wars virtually unscathed. It also survived the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) with very little damage, despite being under siege no less than eight times.

Dinkelsbuhl is different to Rothenburg in that we didn’t see one gift shop, whereas in Rothenburg it seemed like 1 in 10 shops were gift shops of some kind.  The town looked a bit sad in the grey day. All the restaurant sun umbrellas were tied down and no one was sitting at the tables.  It would have been nice to see it on a sunny day.

Here is a little legend of the town.  In 1632 the Swedish army lay encamped outside the city, calling for surrender. The town council argued for days on what to do, and as the debate dragged on, the army's commander, Colonel Klaus Dietrich von Sperreuth, grew more and more impatient, finally threatening to loot the city and burn it to the ground. During the negotiations, one of the Swedes's let it slip that Dietrich was grieving over the recent death of his young son. The gatekeeper's teenage daughter, Lore, learned of this and approached the city council with a daring plan. The council had agreed to surrender, but Lore proposed that she meet the invading Swedes with a delegation of children and beg for mercy.  The gates were flung open and the Swedish army charged through. As they streamed into the city, they found their way blocked by a horde of hundreds of small children, led by the courageous Lore. Legend says that within the ranks of the children stood a boy with such a startling resemblance to Dietrich's dead son, that the Colonel's heart was softened, and lifting the boy up on his horse, he proclaimed the city safe from harm, saying, " Your children are the rescuers of Dinkelsbuehl. Always remember the debt of thanks you owe them."

We drove on to Nordlingen, which is much bigger than Rothenburg and Dinkelsbuhl.  It has proper roads and traffic lights where the other two just had cobbled streets.  The houses are all traditional and there are no modern buildings within the walls.  

Nordlingen was built in an impact crater 15 million years old and 16 miles in diamete. The meteorite hit with an estimated speed of 70,000 km/h, and left the area riddled with an estimated 72,000 tons of micro-diamonds.  Stone buildings in the town contain millions of tiny diamonds, all less than 0.2 mm in diameter.  Nördlingen was first mentioned in recorded history in 898. 

During World War II, Nördlingen was targeted by air raids in 1945, resulting in 33 deaths and damage to the train station, houses, and St. George's Church, though most of the historic city was spared. After the war, Nördlingen became part of the American zone, hosting a UNRRA-run displaced persons.  Before the American occupation, Nördlingen was under Nazi rule, a period during which Hitler was awarded honorary citizenship. 

I love the wonky roof on this house.

52 miles

Tuesday 7th October - Schongau

A quiet night bearing in mind we backed on to the railway. We left Nordlingen and headed for Landsberg am Lech. 

We couldn’t find any motorhome spaces although there should have been 8, but we found another car park and parked next to Kiwi’s twin 😃  

Landsberg was built on the River Lech and at the entrance to the town was a man made weir which was very pretty.   The old town has some pretty buildings and a few have art painted on them.  Sadly it appears that there was a lot more of the town, including some town walls, which we didn’t see.  It is a busy town with lots of cars driving through, but the old square is traffic free. 

There is an unusual half tower called The Jungfernsprung dating back to the 14th century.  In the 19th century, it was significantly raised to accommodate a water pressure tank. There is a legend dating back to the Thirty Years' War, when women are said to have jumped from the tower to their deaths to escape the invading Swedish soldiers. 

The town is noted for its prison where Adolf Hitler was incarcerated in 1924. During this incarceration Hitler wrote/dictated his book Mein Kampf together with Rudolf Hess. His cell, number 7, became part of the Nazi cult and many followers came to visit it during the German Nazi-period. Landsberg am Lech was also known as the town of the Hitler Youth.

In the outskirts of this town existed a concentration camp complex, Kaufering, where over 30,000 victims were imprisoned under inhuman conditions, resulting in the death of around 14,500 of them.  Kaufering was a system of eleven subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp located around the town of Landsberg am Lech in Bavaria, which operated between June 18, 1944, and April 27, 1945. 

Our next, and last, town was Schongau, where we found our Aire by the River Lech.  The footpath up to the town was all uphill with lots of steps. Some of the steps had a stream running beside them.  We staggered up to the top and through a lovely gate in the town walls.   

Coming down the steps was a lot easier 😃 though Richard’s knee was playing him up. Rio and I went across the road to look at the river, the bank was quite steep and he decided to have the zoomies - I was worried he would zoom into the water!

Rio has managed to embarrass us three times in the last few days. Twice, when Richard and I were studying a map, a German lady had to point out that Rio had done a poo!  Today he saw a boy, about 12, with a guitar on his back and he freaked out!  He barked at the poor boy who looked terrified!

93 miles 

Wednesday 8th October - Fussen

A quiet night until 6am when a lorry woke me up 😕. I’d just got back to sleep when school children started gathering for their school bus at 7am!!  

I tried a new supermarket today, REWE.  It was a nice shop with a huge beer section!

We were off to the Pilgrimage Church of Wies.  I thought it was a small building so was very surprised when I saw just how big it was.  The church is an oval a Rococo building, built in the late 1740s. Because of its outstanding Rococo architecture it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  When I went in there was a man giving a speech of some sort in German.  As he finished everyone clapped - I wondered what he was talking about!  Next thing the organ started up, it was wonderful looking round the amazing building with the organ booming out.  The ceiling was something else, it was very hard to take photos without falling over!  The pulpit was really ornate, but right in the middle of the church is a wooden statue of Christ and it’s that the church was built for.  It is said that in 1738 a miracle happened when tears were seen on the statue which was in the middle if a field.  A wooden chapel was built in the fields but there were so many pilgrims to the small building that it was decided to built a splendid sanctuary for the statue. 

The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary. The choir was consecrated in 1749, and the remainder of the church finished by 1754. 

The next stop was to look at the outside of Neuchwanstein Castle.  We couldn’t go in as dogs aren’t allowed.  We had hoped to go to a bridge and a waterfall where you can get a good view of the castle but we couldn’t take the motorhome down the road, so we turned round and drove back the way we had come stopping so that I could take some photos.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria felt the need to escape from the constraints he saw himself exposed to in Munich, and commissioned Neuschwanstein Castle on the remote northern edges of the Alps as a retreat.  Ludwig chose to pay for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing rather than Bavarian public funds. Construction began in 1869 but was never completed. The castle was intended to serve as a private residence for the king but he died in 1886, and it was opened to the public shortly after his death. Since then, more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle.  In April 1945, the SS considered blowing up the palace to prevent the building and the artwork it contained from falling to the enemy. The plan was not realised by the SS-Gruppenführer who had been assigned the task, and at the end of the war the palace was surrendered undamaged to representatives of the Allied forces. The Allied occupation authorities eventually returned the palace to the reconstituted Bavarian state government.

We then found our campsite, which was huge with lots of touring caravans made into bungalows!  Some looked really tatty but most were lovely but very cramped up together. 

 The site is situated on the edge of a lake, Bannwaldsee, and our pitch was very close to it.  We sat for a while on a bench just looking over the lake until Rio got bored!  We walked alongside for as far as we could and then returned to Kiwi for a glass of wine in the early evening sun.  Later there was an amazing sunset.

47 miles