Wuerzburg at the start of the Romantic Road

The city of Wuerzburg sits at the start of what was labelled by the tourist industry in the 1950’s as the Romantic Road. This winds through Bavaria from Wuerzburg to Fussen.
We spent last night and tonight in a very pretty camp site on the banks of the river Main, across from the city and beneath the 12th Century fortress. The Hill that the fortress stands on is covered in grapevines as was most of the landscape that we drove through from Heidelberg to get here.
Today was spent exploring the city. There are many churches, two of which we went through, but the big claim to fame is the Residenz, a palace built starting in 1720 by the Bishop Prince at the time and the future Bishop Princes that ruled. It is a huge palace, 168 metres long and 90 odd metres wide. The ceilings are covered in frescos from both the Roccoco and Romansque eras, many of which are painted also. The walls are hung with tapestries from Brussels and local makers, and from the ceilings hand beautiful clear crystal and coloured glass chandeliers from Vienna. There is one very special room, the mirrored cabinet that is floor to ceiling painted and gilded mirrors. In many ways it reminded us of Versailles. The Residenz gained UNESCO world heritage status and is being slowly restored.


The old town hall is a very pretty building, bought by the council in the 14th century, it has a painting of a tree on the side representing the old plane tree that the law court used to meet under, and up the bell tower is a beautiful sun dial and two clocks. It is not a large building, quite plain in design, but so lovely decorated.
There is a very sad story of Wuezburg. On March 16 1945 it was bombed by the British and in less than 20 minutes 80% of the city was destroyed, including much of the Residenz and the main cathedral. The night was called ‘murder on the Main’. Of course one is aware that similar atrocities occurred on both sides, it is spoken not about who did what, but the damage that war does to all. Many of the things you read are about restoration efforts that have occurred since.
Tomorrow we leave our pretty river side haven and head down south, we will remember all about Wuerzburg forever.