Friday, August 7, 2009

Day 5 - The Romantic Road begins in Würzburg

This was the day we said goodbye to Bill and Elise back at the Stuttgart Airport. After parting ways, Sean and I picked up our rental car (a tiny Mercedes) and headed down the Autobahn to Würzburg, which is the first city on the "Romantic Road."

We got into town around lunch time, and it took forever to figure out where we could park our car at our hotel. I think the lady at the front desk and I had some language issues, because she kept saying the entrance to the parking garage was on the opposite side of the hotel than it actually was. Anyway, after checking in to the Hotel Strauss, which was right smack in the middle of the Altstadt ("old town"), we struck out in search of food. If you're interested in what we ate, it was another one of those Kebab thingies... tasty.

We saw several beautiful old churches in town, but the main highlight of Würzburg is the Marienburg Fortress, which is across the river from the main part of town on top of a huge hill. You have to cross the Altmainbrücke (Old Main Bridge) to get there, which is a sight in and of itself. The bridge is covered in statues of saints and famous locals from yesteryear.

The Fortress was pretty impressive (and so was the climb uphill to get to see it). It originated as a fort in the year 704 and was fortified with a wall in the 13th century. Unfortunately, we didn't get to go inside many of the buildings of the fortress because everything closed up at 4:00. It was still nifty, though. It was worth the climb to see some awesome views of the city from such a high vantage point.

After dinner (I think it was Italian food?), we crossed the Old Bridge again and sat alongside the river watching people and riverboats go by. Some of the people watching got a little risque, as evidenced by a certain couple that I will not describe here. It's a family blog!

We were pretty tired from being in the sun (and a little burned), so we went to bed. The problem with hotels that are right in the middle of everything is that people outside are noisy until pretty late. That wouldn't be so bad except that there is no air conditioning, so you have to leave your windows open if you don't want to roast. And that is why God invented ear plugs!

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