Wurzburg & Bamberg

Decided to turn off the aircon and sleep with the window open to see if that helped the chesty cough/cold.  It worked wonders and I’m starting to feel somewhat human again.

Today we are in Wurzburg on the River Main, just about bang in the middle of Germany.  Most of Wurzburg was destroyed in WWII.  This being an important centre of the Franconian wine region there has been a massive program of restoring and recreating the architectural treasures.

Today we visited the Residenz, a lavish palace in which the city’s bishop pulled out all the stops to ensure that’s its decoration would attract the wonder and envy of his contemporaries.  It was completed in 1744 and has 342 rooms.  We entered thru the coach entrance and up the grand staircase with the most magnificent 3D painted/plastered mural ceiling I have ever seen, with scenes from every continent of that time.  From here into the ‘white room’ which is very hard to describe as its completely decorated with lavish plaster sculptures on the ceiling and walls and was all done freehand.  Next room was the Bishop’s Dining Room which was more like a ballroom with pink marble and goldleaf everywhere.  From here there was room after lavish room – bedrooms, mirror rooms (a room all done in painted mirrors and gold leaf), cardrooms (with huge tapestries), waiting rooms etc – each one more lavish than the previous one.  The gardens were just as spectacular with the avenues of Japanese cherry blossoms in full bloom and the manicured topiary and flowed beds were a riot of colour.

After this visual overload we wandered down the streets with our guide looking from the outside at many more churches and wonderful buildings including the Marienberg Fortress, which is huge and also very lavish.  The afternoon turned quite cool so we wandered back to the boat for a lazy afternoon, reading and napping and followed by a different dinner – a tapas style meal in the lounge, which was very pleasant.

Bamberg, Bavarian

Bamberg is built on seven hills flanking the River Regnitz and is compared to Rome for this reason.  The whole of Bamberg’s Old City dating from 12^th to 18^th century has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  This is also Germany’s Beer Capital and our guide has warned us not to try this town’s local brew as it tastes like bacon and is revolting.

Our day in Bamberg started with the usual full breakfast followed by a very interesting talk on the European Union.  Yeah sounds boring but in fact it was a good presentation.  After another delicious lunch we set off on the bus on our guided tour.  We started the tour in the marketsquare and walked up one of the hills to the Cathedral, which we couldn’t enter as there was a wedding taking place.  From here we went to the Bishops Palace.  These Bishops did themselves proud with their palaces!  This one is under renovation so we only walked the outside and the garden.

Back to the Cathedral now the wedding was over and once he had a quick look we decided to ditch the guide as she was longwinded and boring.

We followed the map and walked all the sights of the fishing village, knows as little Venice. Next stop was the old City Hall, which is built in the middle of a bridge, then we just wandered the streets admiring the buildings and finding little treasures like Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann – a prolific writer and composer.

Back on the board the boat and Alan has gone off to a beer tasting event before dinner.

I’m trying to update the blog but are satellite connection was been down for nearly two days but hopefully something will come back soon.  Till then I will use Microsoft word.

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes which I managed to see before we lost internet.