Würzburg's Festung Marienberg
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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We started our day in Würzburg by walking up to the Marienberg fortress.
The path from the Main river starts by going through a city park north of the hill.
The park is broken into small sections with trees and plants from Würzburg's sister cities. Here's the zen garden inspired by those in Otsu, Japan.
The park office is styled after the Swedish sister city, Umeå.
Flowers on a tree from Rochester, New York in the American section of the park.
A Scottish garden and short stone wall from Dundee.
The outer walls of the fortress were massive, about twenty feet thick at the point of this gate.
From just outside Marienberg's innermost ring wall you get a clear view of the Main river valley and the vineyards on the hills just past the river. If Sarah and I weren't standing in the way you'd have an excellent view of it all.
This is the first real view you get of the fortress when you emerge from the park. The onion domed building is the chapel inside Marienberg.
Festung Marienberg, the fortress above Würzburg, started as a Celtic structure around 700 a.d. Today it's a massive fortress complex built atop a layer cake of walls and grape vines.
The current version of the fortress was completed after the end of the Thirty Years War in the mid seventeenth century.
Marienberg's gatehouse, the entire complex is now owned by the Bavarian state and houses a restaurant, museum and state archive.
The main tower inside the central courtyard of Marienberg. Only the top 3/4 of the tower has a staircase, the smaller tower on the back left is the only way to access the upper part of the tower from the ground level. Notice the height of the tower compared to Sarah, standing in the foreground, and the people standing at the tower's base.
Marienberg was a palace and residence for the Bishop of Würzburg until the early 19th century.
Inside Marienberg's chapel.
Sarah standing in the walls above Würzburg.
The slope of the hill between the walls is steep enough that the Bishops could plant grape vines within the fortress walls. The two gravel paths you can see here are actually connected and circle the entire fortress.
Grape vines are still planted on all but the north face of the hill. The grape varietals are different on each side of the fortress.
Riesling grapes are planted on the south face of the hill. All of the grapes planted here will be used to make wine for the Staatlicher Hofkeller (State Court Cellar), sort of like the municipal winery. The Staatlicher Hofkeller is actually the oldest winery still in production in Europe. It has been producing wine since 1128.
It was the first week of May so there were really no grapes on the vines yet, but I did find a very VERY small bunch growing here...
The views from Marienberg had to have been the best of our whole trip. Würzburg is a beautiful city and you see nearly all of it from the top of the fortress. Just outside the north end of town you are able to see the vineyards that line the hills along the Main river valley.
This sign warns that all of the walls are inherently dangerous... we were actually here on the day when the grass along the top of the fortress was getting cut. In the previous picture you can see a metal ring mounted in the stone wall next to my right hand. There was a guy walking along the top of the sloped walls with a weed eater mowing the grass while hooked on to the metal rings. It looked like it would have been fun for a little while. The picture on the sign pretty accurately depicts the steep grade on the outer side of the walls.
Enjoying a Würzburger Hofbräu Hefeweizen in the small beer garden at Marienberg, I'm on the phone with my Grandma trying to explain why I haven't uploaded pictures yet...
The views from the walk back down the west side of Marienberg were just as awesome as they were on the way up.
Quite a bit further down the trail from Marienberg we end up crossing the Alte Brücke to get back into the city center. Here you can see a silhouette of Saint Kilian with the Marienberg fortress in the background. Interesting side note: Saint Kilian was said to have been an Irish missionary that came to Bavaria toward the end of the 7th century. He actually died in Würzburg in 689 a.d.
On the same bridge you can also see a statue of Saint Nepomuk (who, apparently, isn't important enough to get a gilded cross?) with vineyards in the background
Saint Burchard on the Alte Brücke in Würzburg
Pipinus, the best dressed statue on the Alte Brücke...
View of the Main river from the Alte Brücke. The rocks create a small channel on the west side of the river which leads to a small lock system.
That's about half of the pictures from our first day in Würzburg. I'll be posting the rest soon, followed by the rest of the pictures from our May 2009 trip to Germany.
Click to view more pictures.
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We started our day in Würzburg by walking up to the Marienberg fortress.
The path from the Main river starts by going through a city park north of the hill.
The park is broken into small sections with trees and plants from Würzburg's sister cities. Here's the zen garden inspired by those in Otsu, Japan.
The park office is styled after the Swedish sister city, Umeå.
Flowers on a tree from Rochester, New York in the American section of the park.
A Scottish garden and short stone wall from Dundee.
The outer walls of the fortress were massive, about twenty feet thick at the point of this gate.
From just outside Marienberg's innermost ring wall you get a clear view of the Main river valley and the vineyards on the hills just past the river. If Sarah and I weren't standing in the way you'd have an excellent view of it all.
This is the first real view you get of the fortress when you emerge from the park. The onion domed building is the chapel inside Marienberg.
Festung Marienberg, the fortress above Würzburg, started as a Celtic structure around 700 a.d. Today it's a massive fortress complex built atop a layer cake of walls and grape vines.
The current version of the fortress was completed after the end of the Thirty Years War in the mid seventeenth century.
Marienberg's gatehouse, the entire complex is now owned by the Bavarian state and houses a restaurant, museum and state archive.
The main tower inside the central courtyard of Marienberg. Only the top 3/4 of the tower has a staircase, the smaller tower on the back left is the only way to access the upper part of the tower from the ground level. Notice the height of the tower compared to Sarah, standing in the foreground, and the people standing at the tower's base.
Marienberg was a palace and residence for the Bishop of Würzburg until the early 19th century.
Inside Marienberg's chapel.
Sarah standing in the walls above Würzburg.
The slope of the hill between the walls is steep enough that the Bishops could plant grape vines within the fortress walls. The two gravel paths you can see here are actually connected and circle the entire fortress.
Grape vines are still planted on all but the north face of the hill. The grape varietals are different on each side of the fortress.
Riesling grapes are planted on the south face of the hill. All of the grapes planted here will be used to make wine for the Staatlicher Hofkeller (State Court Cellar), sort of like the municipal winery. The Staatlicher Hofkeller is actually the oldest winery still in production in Europe. It has been producing wine since 1128.
It was the first week of May so there were really no grapes on the vines yet, but I did find a very VERY small bunch growing here...
The views from Marienberg had to have been the best of our whole trip. Würzburg is a beautiful city and you see nearly all of it from the top of the fortress. Just outside the north end of town you are able to see the vineyards that line the hills along the Main river valley.
This sign warns that all of the walls are inherently dangerous... we were actually here on the day when the grass along the top of the fortress was getting cut. In the previous picture you can see a metal ring mounted in the stone wall next to my right hand. There was a guy walking along the top of the sloped walls with a weed eater mowing the grass while hooked on to the metal rings. It looked like it would have been fun for a little while. The picture on the sign pretty accurately depicts the steep grade on the outer side of the walls.
Enjoying a Würzburger Hofbräu Hefeweizen in the small beer garden at Marienberg, I'm on the phone with my Grandma trying to explain why I haven't uploaded pictures yet...
The views from the walk back down the west side of Marienberg were just as awesome as they were on the way up.
Quite a bit further down the trail from Marienberg we end up crossing the Alte Brücke to get back into the city center. Here you can see a silhouette of Saint Kilian with the Marienberg fortress in the background. Interesting side note: Saint Kilian was said to have been an Irish missionary that came to Bavaria toward the end of the 7th century. He actually died in Würzburg in 689 a.d.
On the same bridge you can also see a statue of Saint Nepomuk (who, apparently, isn't important enough to get a gilded cross?) with vineyards in the background
Saint Burchard on the Alte Brücke in Würzburg
Pipinus, the best dressed statue on the Alte Brücke...
View of the Main river from the Alte Brücke. The rocks create a small channel on the west side of the river which leads to a small lock system.
That's about half of the pictures from our first day in Würzburg. I'll be posting the rest soon, followed by the rest of the pictures from our May 2009 trip to Germany.