Wurzburg

As we tour the cities and towns along the river in Germany, you can easily forget that many of them had been severely damanged during WWII. Most often, those cities that were of critical or strategic significance were the ones most heavily bombed and damaged. Some of the towns experienced 90% or more damage while others suffered much less (about 5%). It is nice to see that they have carefully attempted to restore the towns in keeping with the period to preserve and replicate as much historical value as they can. Wurzburg was one of the most heavily damaged large cities in Germany.

Wurzburg is home to one of Germany's largest and most ornate palaces - an impressive Baroque Bishops' Residenze (UNESCO world heritage site). This former residence of the Wurzburg prince-bishop was designed by architect Balthasar Neumann and built over a 70 year period, beginnning in 1720. Both the massive reception staircase and the overhead ceiling are considered masterpieces of design, made even more impressive by the Venetian artist Giambattista Tiepolo's stunning 'Four Continents' ceiling fresco. here in reception, we learn how guests were greeted - the prince-bishop would decend varying amounts of steps depending on the importance of his guests. rarely did a guest qualify for his welcome at the bottom of the staircase. the reception area was designed to allow the entrance of the guests horse and carrages, - so you can imagine the magnitude. the stairs are very low risers - designed so that guests - especially women - would appear to glide up the staircase rather than climb. the women wore tight corrsets and very heavy clothing and it was a concern that they might pass out on the way up the staircase! Closer examination of the 'Four Continents' reveal that the artist truely had not visited the continents, we some of the representations were not accurate. despite the inaccuracies, it was still a stunning masterpiece. we visited several of the rooms that were open to touring. some of this building has been converted into private 'residences' and if you are one of 'influence' you might be able to rent one of the apartments. The massive palace was impressive and even had ceramic furnaces in most of the rooms. pictures are not allowed to be taken in the Residenze - but of course - there is a gift shop where you can purchase postcards of the ornate rooms. the rooms we visited included several reception rooms, the first of which is where guests would leave their weapons and guards - the white room. it was purposefully designed to bring peace to the eye after taking in the glory of the ceiling fresco in the grand entrance hall which covered more than 2,000 square feet in area! the next room was a waiting room, but in this room, guests would stand, here as well there are beautiful paintings on the walls and ceilings, including one of the wedding of the prince bishop to his 12 yr old bride. the following room (also a waiting room) had large tapesties on the walls but also had seats. again, your status deterined if you warranted a single chair with a back or simply a bench to be shared with other guests. next we entered what was a bedroom - fairly simply laid out in comparison to the other rooms. then we entered the most ornate of the rooms - the mirrored room - which was completely done in gold and mirrors! stunning.

i really dont have a good idea of what a prince bishop did or was - but obviously they were men of means and power - as all through our journey their residences are the largest and most ornate structures in the city or town.

after leaving the palace, we decide to heff it into the main market square on foot. again i am impressed by the colorful and varied 'fair' like structures (booths?) that are set up and sell everything on would ever need. this inlcudes meats, cheeses, flowers, kitchen gagets, clothing, underwear, pots & pans, windows, vaccums, souviners, jewlery - to name a few! again the market is crowed and surrounded by people and shops and wonderful smells (food, flowers, etc). We spend time sampling some of the local specialities (no beer this time) and shop around before we head back to the ship.

We are docket a bit further from the town center - still walkable - but a bit further than most of our stops. there is a movie theater dockside and we tried to see if they were showing movies in 'english'. while it was a rather large complex (largest i had seen - in fact only one i had seen), they were not showing any films in english that day - i guess some days they do and some days they dont!. it was a warm sunny day and we enjoyed a pleasant time on the sun deck when we got back.