"A Pearl in the Middle of Bavaria" Riedenburg by RhineRoll

Riedenburg is a small town tucked away in the Altmühl Valley, some 25 km away from Ingolstadt and about 35 km from Regensburg. It is an excellent base to explore the valley and much of the rest of Bavaria, if you have a car and if you are willing to take on the first 25 km or so of undulating country road before you reach one of the fast Autobahns. The setting could not be more idyllic and the town has a very welcoming feel to it, owing to its brightly painted house facades.

Essing in the Altmühl Valley

It is no exagerration at all to put the Altmühl valley to the very front position of Germany's most beautiful river landscapes. The Altmühl is an approximately 200 km long tributary of the Danube. Its source is located a bit north of the famous mediaeval town Rothenburg ob der Tauber, from where it flows towards the east in a very tranquil manner as the valley is not that steep. The river is very clean, which together with its slow speed makes it popular with swimmers and kayakers alike. What the river lacks in flowing speed, the valley easily makes up in scenicness. Firstly, it provides the setting for many wonderful Bavarian picture-postcard towns making touristy places like Heidelberg look like Skid Row. Riedenburg is an excellent example for this. It looks distinctly German with its neatness and cleanliness, but especially on a sunny summer's day, it feels upbeat and easy like an Italian town. The second reason is that parts of the Altmühl valley are lined with spectacular limestone cliffs as the river cuts through the Franconian Jura hills. This is a very popular tourist area with excellent infrastructure, but you will hardly come across the ugly sides of mass tourism which other destinations in Bavaria are experiencing. People here are welcoming, there are loads of things to see and do, prices are reasonable and you get a lot of value for money. I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you think you really need to drown in the tourist masses infesting places like Neuenschwanstein Castle during high season, well it's your choice. But please let me point out there are excellent alternatives just as nice and ten times as authentic.

Created by Man, recaptured by Nature

Although they look quite natural, parts of the Altmühl valley are in fact the product of a large scale landscaping project. From the lovely town of Dietfurt to the even lovelier confluence with the Danube near Kehlheim, what you see is not a natural river but a man-made canal, the final piece of the so-called Rhine-Main-Danube canal. It was created under big political controversy in the 70ies and 80ies. The ecological movement did not succeed in preventing the lower Altmühl from being canalized, but the then government of Bavaria, which thought all people with ecological agendas were communist spies directed by Moscow, was forced to spend 20 % of the canal's costs in renaturation projects to balance the impact of human interference. At least, that way, it was largely possible to maintain the valley's natural appeal.

There was a famous satirical programme about the Canal project by the pouplar political satire show "Scheibenwischer". It is sometimes re-run on the regional 3rd television channels. Don't miss it when it's on -- it's darn good and darn famous for its acute humour. After it had been aired for the first time back in the 80ies, the late Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss ("FJS") got so enraged by the sharp-pointed attacks of the programme that he tried to get the responsible journalists and broadcasters sacked. Even though the public stations are supposed to be free of political control, government-friendly Bavarian television threatened to boycot the show not broadcasting it to Bavarian viewers. This might also give you an idea why many Germans outside of Bavaria compare Bavarian politics and mentality to staunchly Republican areas in the US . In turn, this might also explain, why so many Americans just love Bavaria and neglect the rest of Germany in their itineraries.

• Pros:Idyllic Setting
• Cons:Almost too neat to be real, no railway connection