Train Travel: How I Planned a Four-Day Train Trip Through Germany’s Bavarian Towns for Just a €9 Fare

Educate vacation through Germany this summer time is acquiring a enormous increase: Officers have launched a new  9-Euro-Ticket hop-on-hop off system. Aspect of a authorities system to enable customers with growing power charges, the new fare is valid for journey for a single thirty day period on all neighborhood and regional trains, as effectively as buses, throughout the full of Germany. Though the endless ticket excludes well-liked Intercity Specific trains, you can continue to travel considerably and vast throughout the country for a mere €9 until the conclusion of August, when the provide ends for the 12 months.

Previously in July, I made the decision to e book a ticket to check out the charming medieval towns and foothills of the Bavarian Alps positioned together Germany’s Romantic Street. Here is how I pulled off the 4-working day journey for just €9 in coach fare.

Working day 1: Munich to Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Just ahead of 8 a.m. on a Tuesday, I set off from Munich in a in close proximity to-vacant carriage. I have packed light—my backpack fits easily overhead—following the wry suggestions on the train’s data screens to not “bring your double-bass” on-board throughout the 9-Euro-Ticket period. In a far more crowded carriage just after switching at Treuchtlingen, I hear a number of issues about Ausflüglers, the German term for working day-trippers. But absolutely everyone on board is nicely-behaved. Distant churches with cupolas like onion bulbs and a freight coach complete of Audis whip by my window. 

By late early morning, I’m going for walks the cobblestone streets of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, 124 miles northwest of Munich. Soon after a local pastry—a Schneeball, a nougat-flavored dough ball—I climb the town hall tower and appear down at the red roofs of fifty percent-timbered homes enclosed by 14^th-century walls. I duck into the awesome of St. James’ Church to gaze on Tilman Riemenschneider’s 500-year-previous wooden carvings. Soon after a turn all around the partitions, I go for a pub dinner of Käsespätzle, a clean Bavarian pasta with cheese and crispy onions.

How to get there: From München Hbf (Munich Main Station), choose the RB16 heading to Nürnberg and get off at Treuchtlingen (1hr 57 mins) adjust to the RB80 heading to Würzburg Hbf and get off at Steinach (1hr 6 minutes) then alter to the RB82 to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (15 minutes).

Working day 2: Rothenburg ob der Tauber to Dinkelsbühl to Nördlingen

The following early morning, I’m on a bus to Dinkelsbühl, a couple of hours’ drive to the south, trundling previous tumble-down barns and in excess of-curated entrance lawns. The best floor of Dinkelsbühl’s record museum is dedicated to the Munich Faculty painters who “rediscovered” the town 200 a long time soon after its near ruin in the Thirty Years’ War. Whilst now an proven quit on the Intimate Street, a community bookseller tells me that it’ll choose much more than the 9-Euro-Ticket to make up for the lengthy decommissioned teach line when straight connecting Dinkelsbühl to Rothenburg and Nördlingen. The bus assistance they changed it with is a minor patchy (I had to acquire two buses to get listed here), but I come across them speedy and trusted, if not as cozy as the trains. 

I acquire a further bus to Nördlingen, an hour to the south-east. At the time I get there, I make a twilight pilgrimage to Hexenfelsen, a dolomite block unearthed after the asteroid effect that, 14 million many years back, fashioned the crater in which Nördlingen sits these days, and in which a panel commemorates those burnt at the stake right here through the 16^th-century “witch trend.” I head back into city for a hearty plate of Maultaschen, which are ravioli-like parcels these certain kinds are stuffed with fried greens.