Romantische... the least romantic way to say romantic

The way south was along a stretch of road known as the "Romantische Straße" or Romantic Road. As usual, German doesn't prove the most poetic of languages. It's not the fluid, chic romantique of French or the passionate romantico of Italian. No, it's romantische, or phonetically "romant...ish".

Unsurprisingly, it's not so famous for it's slightly humourous sound in English - rather for the gorgeous medieval towns and peaceful Bavarian landscape. The picture below is of the biggest jasmine vine I've ever seen - and looked like nothing more than a beard on the face of this tower, who has his hat pulled down to keep the sun off...

Ramble on

Having the opportunity to take a car and follow random trails was a luxury I haden't had in a while. The valley, with the the largest town being the one in which we were staying, Gunzenhausen (population: 15,000 very merry Bavarians), was speckled with villages, streams and forests, and surrounded by gently rolling hills - which provided plenty of lovely winding road. Bliss!

Bavarian bird blenders

On one of the hills surrounding Gunzenhausen stood a wind farm - something I'd never been up close to. I know they are a contentious issue amongst Gippsland farmers, but I've always loved the slow, graceful way they spin - it seems a beautiful, very natural movement. Getting closer to them only convinced me more of how much I like them - I was transfixed, and think I took more photos of these than of anything else on the trip!