This was initially posted on my previous blog on April 16, 2018.
My friend Craig took the day off work to take me down to Wurzburg to explore this adorable town. The first thing I noticed on the drive was that I don’t know how Americans come back to the States and handle our limited speed limits. I thoroughly enjoyed taking the highways as fast as we wanted. It all seemed organized and safe, but we were flying. Good luck to my friends on not getting tickets when they get back. Also driving through the German countryside was nice.
Würzburg is another wonderful German town. I loved that I was able to visit cities with old town charm. We started the day at the Residenz (http://www.residenz-wuerzburg.de/englisch/residenz/index.htm). We got there to take the 11am English tour, but had some time to explore the gardens before the tour. The Residenz is beautiful. The gardens were wonderful. You aren’t allowed to bring a camera into the Residenz so I enjoyed taking a few photos of the garden (totally allowed) with my iPhone. It doesn’t quite capture the beauty but it was worth a try.
The English tour is definitely worth taking. You can explore the Residenz on your own, but it is worth finding out more information about the palace, who used it, and what all the artwork meant. Also being in Germany, there is the information about what survived WWII and what had to be redone. The Residenz has some incredible artwork throughout the palace. The main stairway is regal and it only gets better when you look up at the frescos on the ceiling. This is pretty much the only part of the Residenz that survived the war. The fresco looks how how the artist saw the different continents at the time it was created. Europe was definitely his favorite. America was represented by Native Americans and our main animal was an alligator (obviously he had heard only about Florida or he had no clue). The main character from Africa was sitting atop a camel and the scene looked more like a market of exotic goods. The main character from Asia was sitting on an elephant in an environment that is meant to distinguish the continent as the birthplace of writing, science, and kingship. The poor Australians on our tour felt very left out, but at least they weren’t represented by an alligator.
Each room we entered was beautiful. And everything was painted, although so much of it looked like it popped out at you, but it was just incredible painting. The tour takes you into the private wing too. Here the rooms were a little too gaudy for me, but they were incredible. The mirror room actually will give you a headache. They definitely had a different taste in art back then. The tour guide also told us about the wine cellar that operated here back then. Each person living or working in the Residenz was provided 3L of wine each day (including kids). This is an incredible amount of wine and we decided they must have always been drunk. Sadly the wine cellar was not included in the tour. If I ever make it back, I will have to buy a Residenz bottle of wine.
We enjoyed lunch at a cafe in town. I love apple pastries and could eat them most mornings. Then we grabbed some gelato because why skip dessert on vacation. There was a festival going on in town, but we were there too early to see most of it. So we continued over to the Marienberg Fortress. This fort is nestled on top of the hill overlooking Würzburg and is surrounded by vineyards. We decided to take the tour of the Fürstenbaumuseum to see the living quarters and some art. Neither of us are art people so we skipped that extra tour. We also couldn’t catch the English tour, but I think that would have been wonderful. It was interesting to try and guess what parts of the Castle were original and what parts were recreated thanks to the damage of the war. I think my favorite part of the tour was towards the end where there was more information on the history of the Castle. English was sparse while walking through the exhibit but the history section included full English text. There were models of pre-WWII and post-WWII. It was incredibly sad to that 90% of Würzburg was destroyed by Allied bombing just a few weeks before the war ended. The devastation on the model was pretty complete except for two churches and the fresco in the Residenz. Thankfully the town has rebuilt and seems to be thriving again.
Then it was back to Frankfurt to meet more friends for an Italian dinner. It was wonderful catching up with more friends and the food was delicious. We were able to walk through a park to get there which was nice. Again, what made the dinner better was hearing how happy they are over there.
The last full day in Germany was spent at a wine festival at the Wurstmarkt in Bad Durkheim. Lee had suggested it and I was thrilled to join. I love Rieslings and Gewürztraminer, which is pretty much the only wines at this festival. What I didn’t know is that this is the largest wine festival in the world! Yes I just said the largest in the World! It was the Oktoberfest of wine. (http://www.cnn.com/travel/article/germany-wurstmarkt-wine-festival-oktoberfest/index.html)
We walked through rides, food stands, and never ending amazing smells. In the middle were tents full of 36 different wineries. The wineries were mostly serving Rieslings, Gewürztraminer, Pinot, and some rosé. My friends said that red wines weren’t worth trying in Germany so we embraced the white wines. Most were sweet but they do make dry Rieslings in Germany. The amazing thing is the size of the pours. In the US, we are used to super small pours while trying wines. At this wine festival, you could pick between a .25L or .5L pour. A normal bottle of wine is .7L, so these pours were massive. You actually had wine served in a pint glass. It was incredible. Also amazingly the half liter pours only cost $6. We quickly determined that we would all get one wine to start and then start splitting them so we could try a variety of them.
The other amazing thing about this festival was the amount of food stands. I could have tried any German food that I wanted with the only limitation being the size of my stomach. I am proud to say that I tried a large amount of food and made sure to hit the classics. We decided to skip the rides though. They reminded me too much of carnival rides and all I could think about was the ride mishap in the US that happened just before I went to Germany. There were also some tents selling goods, but we didn’t spend much time in that area. There was a band roaming around playing music. People were allowed to bring their dogs. It was truly my happy place and I would love to go back again. Nothing beats food, German sweet wines, and a festive atmosphere. It would have been nice if it didn’t rain as much, but the tents kept us dry.
I loved it and somehow left feeling good despite way too much food and wine. Once we got back to Frankfurt, we grabbed a fast dinner and crashed hard. What a way to say goodbye to Germany.
The next morning, my friends made me breakfast (so impressed with their cooking ability) and then it was off to the airport to fly home. I cannot say enough about this trip to Switzerland and Germany. It included so many adventures and wonderful memories. I can’t wait to go back!