Würzburg

Würzburg's bridge over the River Main -
Franconian vineyards in the distance

Finally, we come to the last stage of the Mother-Daughter travels through Bavaria. I arranged to have five hours in Würzburg en route back home, which ended up being the warmest hours of our trip. We breezed through a walking tour of the city, had lunch at a well-known winery that Chris had been to on his Humboldt tour, and toured a fantastic palace before boarding our final train (of the twelve trains we took in all). It startled me to see the Oktoberfest crew again on the train, coming directly from Munich. They were still dressed up with gingerbread hearts around their necks, snoozing in their seats.

I am currently attending a Musikgarten with Daisy once a week. In that class, I have learned a lovely old German folk song about a bridge over the Main river. As I read that Würzburg's old stone bridge is the 2nd oldest in Germany (dating from 1133), and that it spans the Main, I decided to pack my dancing shoes. Well, actually I didn't, but I couldn't help taking a few inconspicuous skips and spins when I was on the bridge. Here is the first verse followed by my translation:

Es führt über den Main, eine Brücke von Stein,
wer darüber will geh'n, muss im Tanze sich dreh'n.
Fa-la-la-la-la, fa-la-la-la-la

An old bridge of stone, the Main river it spans

Whoe'er wishes to cross, must spin, swirl and dance.

Fa-la-la-la-la, fa-la-la-la-la

It's a shame to include the words without the music, so I've included the track from our at-home CD. It's actually not bad for "kids" music. While I was at it, I added a few pictures. The first image here is a photo I took on that bridge that I've digitally altered to look like a sketch (thanks, Katie Riddle, for addicting me to Picnik). The panorama shots are actually Chris' from his visit last summer when he took the long hike up to Marienburg Fortress, on the other side of the river, where a pre-Christian Celtic fort once stood.

Marienburg Fortress

Daisy and I jumped inside three churches clustered in the old town. The main cathedral, called St. Kilian's, houses the skulls of three sainted Irish monks, martyred in the 7th century. It's the church with the skinny twin spires directly facing the bridge. Once again, I saw works by the Bavarian artist Tilman Riemenschneider (we've been on his trail in Rothenburg and Bamberg, too). Some of his tombstones of Prince-Bishops here are impressive for their late-Gothic realism. The Neumünster basilica is built with a Romanesque interior and looks similar to Salzburg's cathedral. Finally, the striking Marienkapelle has some Riemenschneider's on its exterior: Adam and Eve are flanking a side entrance.

The altar of St. Kilian's Cathedral

The Gothic Marienkapelle

The city itself was not as decorated as Bamberg's; Würzburg was Germany's third most-destroyed city after WWII. That doesn't prevent it from having exciting, modern touches, though:

Unique Würzburg fountain

Daisy fell asleep in her buggy, so I had a solitary lunch at Bürgerspital, a nice Franconian winery that Chris had done a tasting at and toured (seeing the world's oldest bottle of wine). When I asked what kinds of wine I could try by the glass, the server quickly indicated that their Federweisser was from "today." Today? I had seen restaurant chalkboards advertising this mysterious wine all throughout my travels, and was excited to find out what wine from "today" tasted like.

It was white, sweet, and cloudy. They served it in a stemless glass. It was sweet, yet refreshing, like sparkling lemonade. In short, wine from "today" is delicious, and I asked if I could take home a bottle to share with Chris. I was ushered into the kitchen, and told to ask a busy chef. He pulled out a big white bucket of wine, poured some into an old bottle still with its original Silvaner label on it, screwed on a lid, and recommended that it be consumed that day. (Normally, these wines are just sealed with foil, since they produce so much gas; when I got home, the bottle overflowed a whole glass's worth before it stopped fizzing.) Later, I looked up the production process. It's made by adding yeast to grapes that wineries don't think will make good wine. Federweisser is extremely popular with onion cake in harvest season. It has a shelf life of a few days, but the first day is best.

Next, we got to see the prince-bishop's palace. The bishop here became a prince, with secular power over all of Franconia, after he granted Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, a divorce. It was very common in Germany for religious leaders to govern small states, and this had broad implications: as I understand it, protection from a different powerful prince-bishop is the main reason that Luther survived.

One wing of the U-shaped Würzburg palace

Certain rooms were only open to participants of guided tours, so in we went for another hour-long test of Daisy's patience. Furthermore, we had to check all bags: no cookies and no cameras. There was a little meltdown in the completely amazing room of intricately painted mirrors, but I was able to fully concentrate on huge ceiling frescos and frosting-like Rococo stucco because I smuggled in a Conni book. I even saw stucco that was modeled to look like draped fabric -it was so convincing. It was all done by a Venetian artist named Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in the mid-1700's. One thing that's hard to explain but stood out to me was the main entrance hall with large, arched doorways. I learned that it was actually for carriages to pull into, letting them ride inside the palace, right next to the grand staircase; a good way to impress guests.

Palace gardens

Princess Daisy

And after all that, we caught our train and rode back home. Besides the Federweisser, I brought Chris home a "tasting tour" of four outstanding beers: a doppelbock from Andechs monastery, Augustiner's Oktoberfest brew, the wheat beer from Bayreuth, and Bamberg's special Rauchbier, or smoked beer. With my assortment of German beverages, it was like I was making a symbolic representation of the Day of German Unity, which was that day celebrating the 20th year since the fall of the Berlin wall.