Romantic Road: Dinkelsbühl and Nördlingen

Leaving Rothenburg ob der Tauber, it’s a straight 49 km run south on the B25, across rolling Franconian fields of barley. First stop: Dinkelsbühl, a former Free Imperial City spared by the Thirty Years’ War, where patrician townhouses on Segringer Straße show stepped gables and painted facades, and late-Gothic St. George’s Minster (c.1490) anchors the skyline. Another 28 km on, Nördlingen sits inside the 15‑million‑year‑old Ries impact crater: an unbroken circular wall, streets in concentric rings, and the “Daniel” tower (90 m) for a geology lesson from the rooftops.

The day is seamless and flexible: hotel pick-up in Rothenburg, Mercedes at your disposal, you explore while the driver handles the road. In Dinkelsbühl, drop-off at Segringer Tor, time for the Minster and a coffee on the square; then along the B25 to Nördlingen for the climb up Daniel, a full 2.6 km circuit on the ramparts, and a short visit to the RiesCrater Museum. The ride back adapts to your pace, with golden-hour photo stops by the orchards near Möttingen if the light cooperates.