Bavaria, Germany
Salzburg, Austria is right near the German border. This made it easy for us to take a train straight to Munich to start the next leg of our journey.

On our first day in Munich, we took a long walking tour through the center of the city. It was a busy weekend, as Munich was celebrating its birthday, and there were concerts, markets, and even daytime fireworks to celebrate the occasion.

The city of Munich was almost completely destroyed during the war, and so today it is incredibly modern and green. However, it still boasts an ornate town hall, a lovely market square, and some hidden gems that our walking tour helped us discover. The center of the city is a haven for pedestrians and festival goers looking for a traditional snack of a pretzel and a beer.

After hearing about Munich’s dark past (it was the center of Nazi power throughout the 1920s and 30s), we went to the Hofbrau Haus for a lighter atmosphere. Owned by Hofbrau — one of the largest beer producers in Bavaria — it is a large, squat building that serves up steins full of beer and plates of pretzels to thousands of people each day.

We sat just behind the authentically lederhosen-clad band and enjoyed the German folk music while sipping down our liters of beer.

The following day, we took a guided bus tour to the countryside to visit some of Bavaria’s most beautiful castles. We first went to Linderhof Palace, a small but ornately decorated royal estate deep in the Bavarian forest.

The castle was built and decorated to completion by King Ludwig II, better known as the “Fairy-tale king” for his love of the grandiose and regal, and served as his personal reprieve from the business of court life.

Afterwards, we stopped by a traditional German village known for the frescoes that cover much of the town’s buildings. We happened to be there on a celebration Sunday, and we were treated to a traditional German parade.

For the last part of our day, the bus took us to Neuschwanstein Castle, widely regarded as one of the most beautiful castles in the world. Though built in the late 19th century, it achieved notoriety in the 20th century when it became the model for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in Disneyland.

Perched atop a steep and craggy hill, the castle is best seen from a bridge on a mountain pass just above it. The castle’s many spires stretch up to the sky, and it offers an imposing foreground for the sweeping valley behind it.

We spent the afternoon at the town below the castle and exploring the castle’s grounds. While the castle was spectacular from the outside, we learned that the inside was never finished, and so chose to forego a tour of the state rooms. Instead, we took a leisurely lunch and enjoyed more local specialties like apple strudel and a German meatloaf which tasted more like bologna.

After having seen the area in and around Munich, we then took a bus tour of the Romantic Road region of Bavaria. The “Romantic Road” was so named in the 1950s, as travel agents realized that this long stretch of Germany had a plethora of quintessentially German castles and towns. While it is no longer such a “hidden gem,” it is still a lovely place that brings ancient Germany to life.

The bus tour started in Munich and ended in Frankfurt, with an overnight stay in Rothenburg. It helped us kill two birds with one stone — see the Romantic Road and get to Frankfurt, our next stop in Germany.
On our way to Rothenburg, we stopped by a few picturesque German villages that still look much as they did hundreds of years ago.


When we arrived at our final destination of Rothenburg, we were charmed by the city’s old world feel.


We walked up to the tallest tower along its city walls to get great views from above.


On our way back down, we chose to avoid streets and instead admire Rothenburg from the old walls that still circumscribe the majority of the town.

The town is so charming that it even has a large Christmas store that’s open year-round. In addition, the store owners operate a Christmas museum that impresses visitors with the comprehensive history of everything from ornaments to Christmas tree stands.

With its cobblestone streets and long city walls, Rothenburg was a fantastic place to stay the night and get a real feel for the quaint towns of old Germany.
