Bavaria

Our last afternoon in Germany was spent touring the Juliusspital wine cellar in Würzburg.

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We started our second day in Würzburg by walking down to the Alte Brücke to find a bakery for breakfast. As we walked down the riverfront, Marienberg came into focus and we could see that there were balloons on the vines in front of the fortress. As we got closer to the old bridge we could hear music and a loud speaker announcing the start of a festival celebrating the 350^th Anniversary of Silvaner in Franconia.

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After exploring the Marienberg fortress we walked back down to central Würzburg and went through the city center before stopping for dinner in the plaza behind the Frauenkirche.

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Würzburg, the capital of Unterfranken, is a larger city on the Main river in western Bavaria. Würzburg was our final stop in Germany on this trip and it was a nice change of pace. After spending the previous five days in a Munich hostel and a brewery guest house in Bamberg, we arrived at the ritzy four star Maritim Hotel near the University of Würzburg. Würzburg, unlike Bamberg and Munich, isn't a beer town - it's surrounded by vineyards... but more on that later.

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Returning to Bamberg was a lot of fun. It was nice to be back as a tourist and not a student. It wasn't like I was on a strict schedule when I was studying in Bamberg but this time around it was just a lot more relaxing. So with no real itinerary, we were free to make our own way around town. After a day and a half in Bamberg we met up with Bastian, a German friend who just returned from Italy.

After spending a day and a half in Munich, and nearly a full day in Passau, we headed for Bamberg. Bamberg is where I spent the better part of 2006 as a student, so it's been about three years since I was there. Here are the pictures from our first day in Bamberg. Below is Bamberg's Altes Rathaus, the old town hall, which is built in the middle of the Regnitz river.