Day 6 - Wandering Around Wurzburg - Our Feet Are Sore!

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Today was the day of hiking. I’m not sure what we were thinking when we booked a hiking tour in the morning and a walking tour in the afternoon, but the result was we were able to see a lot of Wurzburg and get in a lot of steps! Wurzburg is a city of about 125,000 people located in Germany’s Bavaria region. It is mostly known for its Baroque architecture and Franconian wine. 90 percent of the city was destroyed by the British with a single firebomb attack on March 16,1945. There was no military presence or industrial base in Wurzburg at the time, so the British destroyed the city as only an act of revenge, or to demoralize the Germans. Wurzburg had intentionally stayed away from industrialization precisely because it did not want to become a target in future wars. Wurzburg today has been mostly rebuilt, rebuilding some of the ancient buildings using the original facades that remained after the firestorms and replacing all the interior structure.

For our first foray into the city this morning, we met up with our local guide Wolfgang, and our 4 fellow hikers and boarded the bus for a quick ride up the hills overlooking Wurzburg to a place known only as Kappele (Little Chapel). Again, most people were scared off by the prospect of a hike, but the other 2 couples were a Polish couple, older than us from New Your, and a younger couple from Seattle. Wolfgang was great, and again with such a small group, we didn’t need to use the electronic talk boxes.

Kappele is technically called the Pilgrimage Church of the Visitation of Mary and was initially founded in the late 17^th century and built to its current state in the mid-18^th century. The church was not damaged in the War and is still in its original unrestored state. The church is a spectacular example of Baroque architecture with the beautiful spires on the outside and the heavily ornamental interior with beautiful frescos throughout. One of the ceiling frescos has been partially cleaned to show what the church could look like if it was restored, but there are no immediate plans to do so. But this is Europe, so people just believe: it is a church, it needs restoration, someday it will be restored, we have plenty of time.

From the Kappele, we headed down the garden path to terraced version of the Stations of the Cross. There were a series of about 4 or 5 terraces down the side of the hill, each one containing statues depicting one of the Stations of the Cross. The grounds were beautiful, but it was obvious that this part of Germany is suffering from a serious drought. At the bottom of the path, we passed into the outskirts of Wurzburg and followed the road to the garden entrance of the Marienberg Fortress. These are mostly donated gardens, where some benefactor was given the land to donate and build some public garden and the city maintains the garden afterward. There was a medicinal garden, a Japanese garden, a log cabin donated by sister city Rochester, NY, and a child’s playground. In addition to these formal gardens, there are a series of garden plots that families have leased from the city for generations at a current cost of 300 Euros per year including the water. Some of these gardens are spectacular and while some may become available when the lessee dies, most are passed down within families.

After passing through the garden, we arrived at the base of the Marienberg Fortress. Overlooking the city of Wurzburg, the fortress is an imposing site. Portions of the fortress date back to the 6^th and 7^th centuries with the bulk of the modern completed structure being completed between the 16^th and 18^th centuries. The fortress was also severely damaged by British firebombs back in 1945, and was not completely restored to its current state until the 1990’s. There were a few historically inaccurate modifications introduced in the 1920’s and Wolfgang was quick to point them out. In 1920 there was a huge horse trough and horse bathing pool added that had never existed and were not typical of the era. There is also a huge keep in the center of the square where prisoners were kept while awaiting trial in the Middle Ages. They added an entrance door to the keep at ground level, when the original structure was set up to add prisoners by having them climb a ladder to an upper story entrance and lowering them down to ground level on a rope. Food was also lowered down to the prisoners on a rope. Prisoners normally only waited in the keep to appear at trial for a couple of weeks, and the conditions inside were horrific.

The courtyard was actually quite large, and contains St Mary’s Church, which was originally started in the 8^th century, and the current building dates back to the 11^th century. Unfortunately, it is Monday, and most government buildings in Wurzburg are closed Mondays and open Tuesday through Saturday, so we were unable to see inside St Mary’s Church or the Museum, there are also a couple of restaurants in the courtyard, but they are closed for renovation. Most of the remaining buildings were used over the years as housing, or barracks, but are now used as administrative office space.

After wandering around the courtyard, with Wolfgang explaining much of the history, we began to head down to the Wurzburg main bridge by the shorted direct path. On the way we passed some scenic overlooks, and some beautiful formal gardens, but eventually we ended up on a busy city street. We crossed the street and headed over the Wurzburg Old Main Bridge. Closed to vehicular traffic, you still need to look out for aggressive bicycle riders on what is mostly a pedestrian bridge. As we crossed the bridge into old town Wurzburg, Wolfgang ended the tour at noon with directions to where the ship would arrive at 1:30. Meanwhile, we were free to roam the town and try to grab some lunch. The ship had provided us box lunches, but they were jus a sandwich, an apple and a banana. Jody ate the banana, but we were both concerned about the looks of the sandwich and decided that our goto lunch of Coke Light and gelato were probably a better idea. So we found a great gelato shop and took a break for lunch.

After lunch, we wandered the streets of Wurzburg checking out the local shopping. Unfortunately, shopping was a lot like Cologne and while the restaurants and bars were local, most of the shops were standard European retail. It was still fun to wander around, but we never did find a typical tourist trap souvenir shop. We did manage to find a magnet, but t-shirts were nowhere to be found. After an hour, we headed back to the boat to find it had just arrived and was tying up.

We returned to the boat at about 1:30 just in time to hear the announcement of the busses loading up for the afternoon palace our at 1:45. After a quick ride over to the Wurzburg Palace, we met out with our new tour guide Tiago. Originally from Portugal, and married to a German woman, he had lived in the local area for years. He was certainly knowledgeable about the history of the Wurzburg Palace or the Wurzburg Residence. Wurzburg was ruled by a series of prince-bishops for hundreds of years who lived mainly in the Marienberg Fortress. These prince-bishops were members of the clergy so they were not able to produce heirs. When one prince-bishop died, people would submit their sons as candidates, and the local nobles would choose the successor. This went on for years until the rich Von Shonborn family decide that the prince-bishops needed a more appropriate residence and agreed to build the Wurzburg Residence in the 18^th century. The building contains 573 rooms, and with the grounds and garden, comprise of 1.6 million square feet.

The rules for visiting the residence are very strict, as no photography is permitted. Also this is the first venue where we are required to wear a mask at all times. Had I been good at following rules, I would not have any pictures available for the blog, but I’ve never been very good at rule following, so I did manage to sneak in a few pictures when no one was looking. The Wurzburg Residence was severely damaged by firebombs in 1945, and all of the wooden portions were burned to the ground. Fortunately, the façade remained intact, and the entire structure was able to be restored to its former glory. In fact, while most buildings of this type, built in the 18^th century would be left in their original state with maybe some cleaning performed, this building was restored after WW2 using the original techniques, so we are now able to see a building how it looked when it was originally constructed. The colors in the frescos and the wallpaper on the walls is as bright and colorful as it was when new. Jody and my favorite room was the mirror room, named that way because all the walls and ceiling are covered with gold gilded mirrors. This one room contains over 5 lbs. of gold leaf! And since it is new, none of the gold leaf is worn or tarnished and it sparkles with gold brilliance as it should.

When we left the palace, while waiting to start the city walking tour, we did visit the gardens, and were frankly unimpressed. We suspect it was because of the drought, but the gardens did not seem to be planted as we expected for formal palace gardens. I suspect it will improve once the drought has ended. At 3:45 we met up again with Tiago for a walking tour of the city. It’s funny, but Jody also noticed that even though we had just walked through the city ourselves just a few hours before, we had not noticed the buildings and sights that Tiago pointed out and it seemed like we were visiting a different city.

One funny story that did happen, was that Tiago was telling us a story of one of St Kilian, first big saint from Wurzburg, and it involves the revenge of the wife of a nobleman. The way Tiago told the story, he kept saying the nobleman had a very bad habit of shitting on his wife. We’re all thinking that shitting on your wife is really a bad habit, when all of a sudden, we collectively realized he meant he had a very bad habit of CHEATING on his wife, Tiago just had a very bad accent. One of the Australians pointed it out to Tiago, never mind the irony of an Australian with a thick Australian accent trying to give English pronunciation lessons to a Portuguese-German, when one of the smarter women of the group pointed out it would be much easier for Tiago to say that the nobleman had a bad habit of being unfaithful to his wife. Problem Solved! We all had a good laugh and Tiago promised to try harder.

As the tour was winding down, Jody spied a souvenir shop tucked away with what seemed to be a supply of t-shirts. So, when the tour broke up, Jody and I made a beeline to the souvenir shop and sure enough we were able to score a couple of t-shirts. While we were at it, we decided to stop at the supermarket we had found and pick up a couple of 4-packs of Coke Light to stock our refrigerator in our room.

By the time we made it back to our room, we were both a little tired, and both of us had sore feet. I had walked for 23,000 steps and Jody had more than 25,000 steps. Luckily, we have a quiet morning, where we can sleep in tomorrow, with only a couple of hour walking tour in the afternoon at Bamberg. After a quick relaxing dinner, a couple of chocolate cookies (23,000 steps - I earned them!), it was time to call it a night.

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