Germany's Romantic Road - A Guidebook for Walkers and Cyclists

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Stage 14: Nördlingen to Wallerstein (4km)

It is little more than 4km from Nördlingen to Wallerstein, the next designated staging-post on the Romantic Road, but thereafter it is a further 36km (much of it through some of the remotest countryside on the entire Romantic Road route), to Dinkelsbühl. As Wallerstein warrants a visit of several hours, walkers would be well advised to see it one day (whether by stopping for the night, or by making a special trip out from Nördlingen), leaving the whole of the next day free for the next stage.

Exiting Nördlingen via the Baldinger Tor, the route lies over the railway tracks and all the way through Baldingen, formerly a separate village, but now a Nördlingen suburb. At its northern end, the cycle track deviates to the right away from the B25, but soon bears leftwards to rejoin the road just south of Ehringen, another village which has been swallowed up by Nördlingen. From there, a cycle track runs alongside the road for the remaining 1km to WALLERSTEIN.

Wallerstein
This town was originally known as Steinheim, and was first documented as such in 1238. It was granted to the territorially ambitious Counts of Oettingen in 1261, and after the Reformation became the main seat of the Catholic branch of the dynasty, the House of Oettingen-Wallerstein. The family gained international renown in the 18th century through musical patronage: both Haydn and Mozart were guests, and the court orchestra, which was directed by the Bohemian composer Franz Anton Rosetti, was considered among the finest in Europe. In 1774, Oettingen-Wallerstein was raised to the rank of a principality, but it failed to survive Napoleon’s reordering of the map of Germany, being incorporated into Bavaria in 1806.

Nonetheless, the family retains considerable wealth and influence to this day, numbering landed estates, a brewery and a furniture-making business among its diverse interests. Indeed, so visible is its dominance of the local economy that Wallerstein, whose entire municipal area has a population of little more than 3,000, still manages to maintain the air of a tiny princely capital.

The B25 runs along Wallerstein’s main street, Hauptstrasse. In the middle of this stands the Dreifaltigkeitssäule (Holy Trinity Column), commissioned in thanksgiving for the town’s deliverance from the plague, and carved in 1722-5 by Johann Georg Bschorr.

Herrnstrasse leads up from Hauptstrasse to the Schloss, a modest U-shaped residential palace. It acquired its present appearance in 1805, following a remodelling which incorporated various older buildings, including the St-Anna-Kapelle (St Anne’s Chapel). The grander of the two main wings, with the clock tower and sundial, is still inhabited by the family; the other contains an extensive collection of 18th and 19th century European and Oriental porcelain and glass, which can be visited by guided tour.

In the Schlosspark, the English-style garden to the west, are three more courtly buildings, though neither the Moritzschlösschen, a small palace which is the home of the dowager princess, nor the Teehaus (Tea House) is accessible to the public. However, the Reitschule (Riding School) at the southern end of the park is open for guided visits. It was modelled on the famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna, and built from 1741-51 by a Viennese architect, Paul Ulrich Trientel. The central bloc is an oval-shaped riding hall which is still in regular use for the training of horses and ponies. In the western wing is a collection of historic carriages and sleighs, the star pieces being the three Oettingen-Wallerstein state coaches, notably that made in 1789 for use on festive occasions. There are also harnesses, reins and saddles, plus an old fire engine and other firefighting equipment.

From the western side of Herrnstrasse, steps lead up to Am Kapellberg, on which stands the Maria-Hilf-Kapelle, which was built in 1625 on the model of the original rotunda in Klosterlechfeld. At the top of the same street is the Beamtenhaus (Administration Building), which still serves its original function as the headquarters of the businesses owned by the Oettingen-Wallerstein family. To the west is Sperlingstrasse, the town’s prettiest street, lined by houses built at the end of the 18th century for the estate workers. Each is topped with the ubiquitous Wallerstein trademark, a mansard roof.

At the top of the town is the site of the medieval castle. The lower ring of outbuildings survives, and houses the brewery, the Fürstenbräu, and the associated restaurant, the Fürstliches Keller. Although the fortress itself was dismantled by the Swedes in the Thirty Years’ War, it is well worth climbing to the top of the Wallersteiner Felsen (Wallerstein Rocks), one of the distinctive rocky outcrops of the Ries. They stand 65m above the town and command a panoramic view over the region.