The region from Heidelberg to Frankfurt is usually overlooked by tourists. However, touristic route Bergstrasse has its own character and a fair number of quite decent attractions. It is not suitable for a full-fledged vacation, but for a pleasant few days, a day trip or a stop along a long route – quite excellent. You can get around by car, train or bike. The best time is spring and autumn.
castle road
Odenwald sightseeing
Odenwald is a forested and mountainous region between Frankfurt, Heidelberg and Heilbronn. The mountains are quite high in places. Every time we passed through Odenwald, it was a trip without confidence that we would get where we needed to go on time. The road stretched into infinity and led to completely unexpected places. In my opinion, ghosts from neighboring Spessart have long since moved to this enchanted place, namely to the village of Mudau, which, after two hits, we decided to avoid by any means.
Romantic Franconia
This map includes a significant part of the Northern Romantic Road route, the Romantic Franconia region, as well as the Franconian Lakes.
Schwäbisch Hall. Pie and Spring Festival
The first part was about Schwäbisch Hall picturesque old town. Not only buildings here are old, but also the traditions. Pie and Spring Festival (Kuchen- und Brunnenfest) dates from 1316.
Already the Celts discovered a source of salt in these places and founded the first saltworks. Thanks to this source, the city flourished in the Middle Ages.
Nuremberg old town
Nuremberg (Nürnberg) is a great intermediate point on the way somewhere. Here you can not only spend the night, but also see something, limit yourself to half a day or spend a couple of days. It is easy to find attractions in the area for a week. But for a long stay, I would choose another city for the accomodation.
Schwetzingen. Cherry blossom garden
Not far from Speyer or Mannheim, on the way to Heidelberg, is the city of Schwetzingen.
There is a summer residence built for the electors of the Palatinate in the 18th century. The palace with the rococo-style theater has been partially preserved, but the main attraction, which claimed to be included in the UNESCO list, is the palace park, modeled after Versailles. In my opinion, UNESCO is maybe a little too much for them, but the park is really picturesque.
Dennenlohe. Rhododendron Garden
Germany has magnificent botanical gardens. And many of the front gardens delight the eye with their continuous flowering. But the garden as an art is a rare phenomenon here. Garden exhibitions (BuGa), which are supposed to show garden art, demonstrate much more gardening here. And there are certainly few large picturesque gardens.
One such phenomenon is the garden of Dennenlohe Palace.
Schwäbisch Hall. 1. What to see in old town
An old city with its own traditions, Schwäbisch Hall lies a bit off the tourist track. But it is certainly worth to visit. Schwäbisch Hall is a part of Castle Road (Burgenstrasse) – very good tourist road, with various attractions, although not so gut known as Romantic Road.
In addition to the old city centre, you can see the Darmstadt Madonna – the famous painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (and a couple of other famous paintings), the Comburg monastery and the Wackershofen open-air museum.
Franconian Switzerland and Upper Palatinate. Map of attraction
Regions north and east from Nuremberg to Bayreuth and the Czech border – Franconian Switzerland (Fränkische Schweiz) and Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz).
Franconian Switzerland. Pottenstein. Town
Pottenstein is one of the central locations in Franconian Switzerland. The amount of entertainment around him is off scale. We visited the climbing forest, toboggan and coaster, stalactite Devil’s cave (see part 1). But I would love to wander the surrounding mountains. I have already noticed one bench on the mountain overlooking the valley. I hope it will wait for my return. This post is about the town itself and Tüchersfeld nearby.