Where to Stay in Romantic Road

This is the one base where staying over changes the trip instead of just saving you a drive. The day-trippers arrive around 11:00 and they're gone by early evening, and what's left is a walled town with empty cobbles, lit fountains and a city wall you can walk at 22:00 with nobody else on it. Sleep inside the wall if you can. The Altstadt is small enough that everything is a five minute walk, and the whole point is being able to step out at dusk without getting in the car. Practical bits: most hotels inside the wall let you unload at the door and then send you to the numbered lots (P1 to P5) just outside, which is fine, they're a few minutes' walk. It's the priciest base on the road and it books out fastest, so lock it in early for the Pfingsten weekend and the last two weeks of August. Don't expect a night out. By 22:00 almost everything is shut, so eat before 21:00 and treat the evening as a walking one.

The best second base, and the one I'd pick if Rothenburg is full or over budget. The Altstadt survived almost completely intact, so you get the same walled-town evening for less money, with the Weinmarkt gable houses, the Munster St-Georg and a wall walk all within a few minutes of wherever you sleep. It empties out once the day visitors leave, which is lovely and also kinda boring: this is a book-and-a-beer evening, not a night out. Nordlingen is about 30 minutes away and Rothenburg roughly 50, so you can base here and still do the good stuff in both directions without repacking. Parking sits outside the gates and you walk in, same as everywhere else on this road. One date to check before booking: the Heimattag der Siebenbuerger Sachsen falls on the Whitsun weekend, the same one as Rothenburg's festival, and it fills the town and lifts prices across the whole region.

The other half of the two-town day, and a fine base in its own right if you want the walled-town evening with fewer visitors than Rothenburg gets. Nordlingen is a proper working town rather than a preserved one, it sits inside a 15-million-year-old asteroid crater, and the wall is a complete circle you can walk the whole way round. Sleeping here also gets you the Daniel, the church tower over the Marktplatz, at opening time instead of after a drive, which is the single best view on the road. It's cheaper than Rothenburg, the Marktplatz has enough for dinner, and evenings are quiet in the same small-town way. Base here if your plan is Nordlingen, Dinkelsbuhl and Harburg as one strong day: Harburg is about 15 minutes down the road and Dinkelsbuhl about half an hour the other way. Parking is easy and close to the wall.

If you're driving the full road down to Neuschwanstein, this is the third base the two-night plan doesn't cover, and you'll want it. Fuessen is where the road actually ends, it's ten minutes from Hohenschwangau and the Alpsee, and it's the sensible launch point for the Linderhof detour the next morning. Most people treat the town as a car park for the castles and never walk in, which is their loss: the Altstadt is flat, walkable and one of the prettier ones on the route, with painted facades, the Reichenstrasse to wander and the milky-turquoise Lech right at the edge of town. The trade-off is castle demand, which makes it the other expensive base on the road and another one to book well ahead in summer. Schwangau, just across the river, puts you closer to the castle ticket centre but gives you far less to walk to in the evening. Fuessen is also the one stop on the whole road you could reach without a car, since the regional line from Munich terminates here.

The northern backup, and the one to take when Rothenburg is booked out or charging festival prices. It's roughly 45 minutes up the road, so you can still be at the Rothenburg parking lots by 09:00, and rooms here are cheaper and easier to get at short notice. The town earns a night on its own terms too. The Deutschordensschloss with its three ridiculous staircases is right there, the Marktplatz has the Renaissance Rathaus and the Munster tower, and the "Bad" is literal: this is a spa town with thermal baths and saunas, which is a decent use of an afternoon when you've been in the car for three days. It's also the natural first night if you're coming in from Frankfurt or Stuttgart, because Weikersheim and Creglingen sit within half an hour and both are easy morning stops. Evenings are quiet and residential. Card payment is normal here, unlike some of the smaller stops.

A sleep stop rather than a destination, and a good one. Landsberg sits a bit over an hour short of Fuessen, which makes it the obvious last night before the castles if you don't want to arrive at Neuschwanstein tired, and an easy first night if you're flying into Munich, roughly an hour away. The town gives you about 90 minutes of proper sightseeing: the painted Bayertor, the Schmalzturm, the Rathaus with its rococo stucco facade, a few steep cobbled lanes. That's the whole show, and it's enough for an evening walk. What makes it work as a base is the convenience. The parking garage cut into the Schlossberg drops you next to the Altstadt, so you're out of the car and into the old town in about two minutes, which is not true of most towns on this road. It's hillier than everywhere else on the route, so factor that in if stairs are a problem.