7 Best Sights in The Romantic Road, Germany

This museum, housed in a fine restored Renaissance building, is dedicated to two of the city's most influential benefactors, the Fugger and Welser families, whose banking and merchant empire brought Italian art and world artifacts along with wealth to Augsburg in the 15th to 18th centuries. Providing insight into how the families contributed to the city, the museum offers both a glimpse into life in the 15th century through the Industrial Revolution, and a hands-on lesson in Augsburg history.

The Marienberg collections are so vast that they spill over into a separate outstanding museum that's part of the fortress but operated privately and, thus, has a separate admission fee. The Franconia Museum of Art and Culture traces 1,200 years of Würzburg's history. The holdings include breathtaking exhibits of local goldsmiths' art.

Housed in a 1917 synagogue which escaped major damage on Kristallnacht (night of the broken glass) in 1938, it was restored in the 1990s both for religious services and as a cultural center for theater and concert performances; the glorious blue and gold domed ceiling provides excellent acoustics. The museum tells the story of centuries of Jewish life in Augsburg before WWII, including famous residents. Most notable is the Peter Lamfrom family, who was a shirtmaker in this textile town. The family escaped in 1938, winding up in Portland, Oregon, where he named his new clothing company after the local Columbia River. Daughter Gert (Gertrude) and her husband grew the business into the Columbia Sportswear Company.

Augsburg's main museum houses a permanent exhibition of Augsburg arts and crafts, including sculptures and gold and silver handicrafts, in a 16th-century merchant's mansion, focusing on the medieval, renaissance and industrial revolution periods when the city was one of the most wealthy and influential in Bavaria and Europe.

A highlight of any visit to Festung Marienberg is likely to be this remarkable collection of art treasures. Be sure to visit the gallery devoted to Würzburg-born sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider (1460–1531). Also on view are paintings by Tiepolo and Cranach the Elder, as well as porcelain, firearms, antique toys, and ancient Greek and Roman art. Other exhibits showcase enormous old winepresses and narrate the history of Franconian wine making.

Housed in the former grand hotel, this museum chronicles the history of the Wittelsbach kings and queens from the 11th century to the present day. Focusing primarily on King Maximilian II and his son Ludwig, it details the family's story and the fabled Wittelsbach family's influence in the region, from the development of Munich, their founding of the first Oktoberfest, and the family's role in the resistance to the Nazi regime and their eventual imprisonment during World War II. Interactive exhibits couple state-of-the-art technology with the gold and gilt belongings of the royal family, including an elegant fur robe worn by King Ludwig II, builder of the nearby castles. The adjacent Alpenrose-am-See café overlooking the lake is a good spot to relax.

Formerly known as the Reichsstadtmuseum (Imperial Town Museum), it is still housed in a former Dominican convent dating back to the 13th century, including a cloister where one of the artifacts is the great tankard, or Pokal, of the Meistertrunk. The town purchased the property in 1933 and converted it into a museum. Exhibits include hunting weapons used by Marie Antoinette, a hunting rifle belonging to Frederick the Great of Prussia, musical instruments and original Biedermeier room reconstructed from a Rothenburg townhouse from the early 1800s, and a gallery which explores Jewish life in Rothenberg from the 13th century to the Third Reich.