Pilgrim Route

The road, winding its way through the wonderful Rothenburg, is both a scenic and a bloody route. Some of the bloodiest massacres in European history, prior to WW1, took place here in the 30 years war. Formerly a route for pilgrims from the north of Europe towards the Alps and Rome, it was cut off when the Protestants split from the Catholic church, and what was once a busy commercial road quickly became a backwater. This is the reason that much of the original medieval fabric of these villages has been preserved - no one had the resources to build and update. Today, once again, it's a thriving tourist route (the pilgrims, after all, were amongst Europe's earliest tourists) - and it's worth doing in a leisurely way, staying in the village inns or castle hotels en route while the tour buses roar past and leave you in peace to enjoy it at your own pace.