Wurzburg

Old Main Bridge, Wurzburg

At our daily port briefing last night we received some potentially challenging news about our cruise.  The lock masters throughout Germany vowed to go on strike Monday morning at 6AM. As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, there are about 60 locks from Amsterdam to Budapest and we had only gone through about a dozen as of yesterday afternoon.  Our cruise director explained that the captain was going to try to get through as many locks as he could during the night and that they were working on contingency plans.  As it turned out, we made it through to our scheduled stop in Wurzburg this morning.  We entered the lock at the Old Main Bridge (Alte Mainbrucke, built 1473-1543) just about 6:30AM.  They allowed a few other ships through as well, but finally closed the lock at 2PM. That means that our stay in Wurzberg has been extended.  Our captain said we should be allowed to leave at 4AM tomorrow morning.

Double-Docked next to Amadeus Ship

If for some reason we cannot continue up the Main River, plan B is for buses to come and take us to the next city on our itinerary for our tours and to return us to the ship at night.  The cruise director explained that although it takes hours to get to the next city by ship, it would only take a half hour in a bus.  We hope it does not come to that.  They are saying that the strike will only be for a few days.  It was originally threatened to last a week, and if that were the case plan C would have been to transfer us to hotels, which would be much worse.


When we docked in Wurzburg, there wasn't room for us to be next to the pier, so we are double-docked.  That means we are tied parallel to another ship, in this case, one of the Amadeus cruise line ships.  In order to get to shore we had to go up to the sun deck of our ship, cross a metal walkway to the other ship's sun deck, then go down to their main lobby and out their walkway to shore.   We are tied so close that we can see into someone else's room if both curtains are open.  If we open the windows we can actually have a conversation with people on the their ship, as we did this morning as we were tying up. It's an interesting experience.  From what we can see, this also looks like a very nice river cruise ship. 

The Residenz

We boarded the bus this morning to tour the Prince-Bishop's Residenz, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  This was commissioned by Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schonborn starting in 1720. The architect, Balthasar Neumann, was only 32 years old and had never designed any building before, yet this building in considered a masterpiece.

Even more impressive, to me, were the frescos, by Venetian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo,  and the integrated stucco art, by Antonio Bossi.  The most spectacular example of this is in the vaulted ceiling over the main staircase. Tiepolo created one single painting covering this 30 x 18 meter ceiling, the largest fresco ever produced. The two artists worked so well together, it is hard to tell where the fresco ends and the stucco begins in several cases. As an example, a stucco leg may appear extruding from a figure painted in the fresco. In another room, the Imperial Hall, curtains in the upper corners of a wall are partially painted and partially stucco, and a dog at the bottom on the fresco appears 3D with his shadow painted on the floor behind him. 

Wurzburg City Center

As you may be able to tell, I was stunned by the beauty of the art in this building.  We are fortunate that most of the frescos and tapestries survived WWII, some by the strength of the architecture and others (such as the tapestries and furniture), by being hidden away during the war.   One spectacular room was destroyed and had to be recreated.  This was the mirror room. This is not just mirrors, but art painted on the back of the glass, in reverse order so it showed through.  The glass was then coated with mercury afterwards to create the mirror.  The recreations were done from watercolor paintings and black and white photos of the room before it was destroyed.  In my mind, this room is more beautiful than the famed Amber Room in St Petersburg! 

Marienberg Fortress

Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside, but I did buy a book which anyone who visits us is welcome to browse through.






Outside, we had a few minutes to walk through the lovely gardens, and then our guide brought us down the street to the town center.  He talked a little about the several Catholic churches in the city, one of which is the cathedral for the bishop of the diocese.  After that we were given the option of a bus ride back or exploring the town and its churches on our own and walking back to the ship.  We decided to just take the leisurely walk along the river to our ship.   Across the river we were able to photograph the fortress of Marienberg, where the Prince-Bishop lived before the Residenz was built.  This was built around 1200 and converted to a Renaissance palace in 1600.   Although we could not go there, the pictures show this was also a spectacular castle.

After lunch and a nap we got to go on a galley tour this afternoon.  The kitchen is very compact but well organized and clean.  Our chef, Antonio, is from Romania.  He gave us a nice explanation of how the 8 chefs work together to prepare all our meals.  The tour was supposed to be 15 minutes but we asked so many questions, it went double that.  There were 3 groups scheduled, at 4, 4;15 and 4:30.  I'm glad we were in the first group, since we delayed the other two.