| How we travelled through Bavaria
Tips for the ultimate road trip through the South of Germany
RO-SA-MUNDE!
JA-LA-LA-LALA-LA-LA
RO-SA-MUNDE!
JA-LA-LA-DIE MAMA
With apologies to our former teachers for our poor rendition of the German language. But what we lack in skills in this area, we make up with enthusiasm, loudly singing along to the tunes of our Rotentripf playlist. This, off course, isn’t even a real German word, let alone a proper translation for ‘road trip’. But that didn’t spoil the fun on our first ever venture to travel this way through our neighbouring country.
This road trip took us through Bayern and the neighbouring region of Baden-Wurtemberg. Here we give tips on places that are definetly worth visiting in these areas.
We did this route in two weeks, but you could also take longer and spend more time in each place. There is plenty to do on this ultimate road trip through the south of Germany.
Quickly go to
Germany travel route map
For your convenience, we included links to all these locations in Google maps, so you can easily find these places on your own road trip.
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First stop: Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Our road trip started with a six hour ride from our home town Rotterdam (the Netherlands) to Rothenburg ob der Tauber – one of the most famous and best preserved medieval cities in Germany.
Cobbled streets, timber-framed houses and taverns, classic fountains, castle ports and towers that appear straight out of a fairy-tale. No wonder Rothenburg ob der Tauber is one of the most famous towns along what is known as the Romantic Road (a well-known travel route through Bavaria).
It is also considered the most beautiful, one of the few remaining medieval walled towns in Germany. Its beautiful picturesque buildings, walls and alleyways have made it one of Bavaria’s top tourist destinations.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber is said to have inspired Walt Disney when he made the cartoon Pinocchio.
The highlights of the town are Plönlein (the most photographed street in Rothenburg), the fortified medieval walls with gates and towers, and the Marktplatz with its Renaissance town hall. But our personal favourite was the Burggarten, which offers a wonderful view of the old town and where you can watch a beautiful sunset in the evening.
Our top lunch tip for Rothenburg ob der Tauber: Hotel-Gasthof Goldener Greifen with its beautiful biergarten.
Our top stay tip for Rothenburg ob der Tauber: Hotel Altes Brauhaus, this hotel in the centre of the old town is where we stayed in a beautifully renovated loft room. The hotel also offers convenient parking next door.
Second stop: Bavarian Forest - Riedlhütte
From Rothenburg, we continued our journey to a completely different environment, with a three hour drive to Riedlhütte in the Bavarian Forest (Bayerischer Wald, auf Deutsch).
The Bavarian Forest is the oldest protected nature reserve in Germany and is located on the border with the Czech Republic. This is a relatively popular winter sport area. But we can definitely recommend going here in the summer to hike through the forest and its various spruce, beech and fir trees.
In the Bavarian Forest one can find many signposted paths, for example towards the Rachelsee.
We particularly enjoyed looking for the wild animals in the two Tierfreigelände in this area (in Neuschönau and Ludwigsthal). These are large enclosed nature reserves where the animals can roam freely. Many nature photographers come here to photograph wildlife in a natural environment.
Tierfreigelände are different from a regular zoo, because the animals are all native to the area and are allowed the space to roam freely and hide themselves from public view.
Though wild animals like the brown bear, the wolf or the lynx are considered relatively easy to photograph here, we only saw the lynx after a second visit and a thorough search through binoculars. The bear and wolf didn’t show themselves when we were there. But this was part of the fun: you walk through a beautiful forest and don’t know what you will encounter!
We did see: moose, an otter, deer, European bison, owls, a wild cat and various birds of prey. With a little luck, you can also see wild boar, squirrels, oxes and ermines. Birds such as the dipper and the trident woodpecker are also spotted regularly. Access to the Tierfreigelände is free (but we did need to pay for parking).
Our top tip for eating and staying in Riedlhütte: Der Wieshof.
Third stop: Garmisch-Partenkirchen
After checking out of our hotel in the Bavarian forest we travelled further towards the south of Germany, to the well-known ski resort Garmisch-Partenkirchen. A trip of about 3 hours.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen is near the border with Austria and is famous for hosting the ‘Four Hills Tournament’ (a famous ski jumping tournament) every year on January 1st. It is also known for its luxury accommodations. Staying in Garmisch-Partenkirchen is therefore a bit more expensive than in the rest of Germany, but this is something we’d taken into account.
We didn’t stay in the town itself, but choose our own luxury hotel about 12 km further inland. We stayed at Boutique Hotel LARTOR, which was beautifully positioned between the mountains and in the middle of the region’s main attractions, such as the Neuschwanstein and the Partnachklamm gorge, both of which were at about 40min drive away.
Unfortunately, Mau went through his back on the very first morning of our stay here, which made that we couldn’t visit the Neuschwanstein Castle – the famous fairy-tale castle that inspired many of the famous Disney castles. But this does give us a good reason to return to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, so we can finally try the tour I’d booked.
Luckily for us, there’re worst places to spend a day in bed. I opened the large doors from our hotel room to the farmland and the view of the valley and its mountains behind it. I never expected to be so excited for the smell of manure. But what an amazing place this was!
The next day Mau still felt pretty awful, but we did manage to make our way to the Partnachklamm gorge, a hidden gem that had been the main reason we’d wanted to visit this area. With ice blue glacier water and over 80 meters high rock, the 700 meters long Partnachklamm offered one of the most gorgeous hikes we ever made.
The gorge is located south-east of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and has been open to the public since 1012. The Partnach river that runs through it, carries meltwater from glaciers, creating a swirling mass of water in the narrow passage.
The water comes from the glaciers on the Zugspitze, disappears into the ground below the glaciers and re-emerges at the source at an altitude of 1,500 metres, where it finds its way to the Reintal valley below. This has created several gorges, but the Partnachklamm is the best known and definitely a place you don’t want to miss.
Another major attraction in Garmisch-Partenkirchen we unfortunately didn’t have a chance to personally explore is the Zugspitze. At 2,962m this is the highest mountain in Germany. At the top there is a restaurant with a roof platform offering a wonderful view of the surrounding mountain peaks and Lake Eibsee.
The top of the Zugspitze can be reached by a series of cable cars departing from the Zugspitz station in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. There are also several beautiful hiking trails here.
Fourth stop: Black Forest - Triberg
We continued our road trip west towards another of Germany’s borders, this time with France. Our destination: the Black Forest!
Known for inspiring the tales written by the Brothers Grimm, the Black Forest is another famous area in Germany, which definitely has this, at times eery, magical, fairy-tale atmosphere. We drove for about four hours past beautiful landscapes and the iconic Lake Titisee (a popular lake with water sports enthusiasts) to Triberg, a small town in the south of the Black Forest best known for its waterfalls.
The Triberg waterfalls are the highest in Germany and definitely worth a visit. But there’s more to do in this classic town, like visiting the world’s largest and smallest cuckoo clock. Unfortunately we ran out of time to do this ourselves 😉.
Schwarzwaldhochstrasse
From Triberg we travelled on to the northern side of the Black Forest, to spend a few days in the well-known town of Baden-Baden. Although the road from Triberg to Baden-Baden is not that long, we purposefully didn’t take the fastest route, but followed the B500 over the so-called Schwarzwaldhochstrasse, a beautiful panoramic route (of about 1h50min), which led us past the most beautiful places in the area, especially the Geroldsau waterfall near Baden-Baden.
You can find the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse on the B500 between Baden-Baden and Freudenstadt.
Fifth stop: Black Forest – Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden itself is a historic town that was already an important spa town in Roman times. The old Roman baths were put back into use here after extensive restoration work, and today, you can still bathe in the warm spring water that bubbles up from the earth, at a depth of two kilometres.
Baden-Baden is also known for its many culinary restaurants and the good wines that are produced right here in the area. The Michelin Guide recommends as many as 36 restaurants in and around Baden-Baden, which made it a difficult task for us to choose where to eat. But we were up for the challenge!
We particularly spend our time in Baden-Baden bathing 😉. The two biggest thermal baths of the city are the Caracalla Spa, which we visited, and the Friedrichsbad, which was closed at the time due to the effects of the Corona pandemic.
The water in these spas are said to cure all sorts of health problems, including rheumatic and metabolic illnesses. So we felt it a good idea to let Mau immerse himself in this. Although the long term effects weren’t as impressive as legend would have it, soaking in the old marble-clad baths of the Caracalla Spa, did give him short term relief of his back pains.
Sixth stop: Trier
After a relaxing stay in Baden-Baden, we slowly headed home to Rotterdam. But to break up this otherwise 6-hour journey, we made one more stop in the city of Trier, the oldest city in Germany.
Trier is located in a widening of the Moselle wine region, near the Luxembourg border. It attracts many visitors each year, not only because of the many well-preserved buildings from Roman times, but also because Trier has many other protective monuments, early Christian shrines and art treasures from classical antiquity.
Many of these monuments are on UNESCO’s World Heritage List and are best visited on a walk through the city, which is exactly what we did. A day was long-enough for us to see most of Trier’s heritage structures.
And so it became time to give our vocal cords and the old Rotentripf playlist another run, and head home!
RO-SA-MUNDE!
JA-LA-LA-LALA-LA-LA
RO-SA-MUNDE!
JA-LA-LA-DIE MAMA