Wertheim, Germany

 We started the day on a choo-choo train!  Good fun, it carried us about 10 minutes  into Wertheim. One of our new friends snapped the photo of us as we were leaving. 

The town of Wertheim is a medieval city on the Main river.  It dates back to the 1200's.   Its famous for it's half timbered homes and castle remains high on the hill.

The town was just lovely to walk thru.

Our guide was a native and was very good and very funny with his heavy German accent. 

You can see a tower of the castle in the center of this photo.  We will climb the hill to see it after the tour.

This house was painted with cobalt, apparently very expensive, to show wealth at the time.

These were "stumbling stones" installed  to remember and honor those who used to live in a building but were murdered by the Nazi.

Houses on both sides of the small river Tauber.

As you must know by now, I can't resist a good church photo or two....

Our guide explained that this church was once separated in half, with Catholic services on one side and Protestant services on the other.  They subsequently built a Catholic Church  so now this one is all Protestant....

Tour was over so we set out for the long climb to the castle ruins.

Beautiful views along the wa.

The castle seems largely original stonework.

City view. 

We walked back to the boat thru the town...photo of the Viking boat at dock.

We were soon underway as we ate a leisurely lunch.  Within an hour we were treated to a glass blowing  demonstration.   This fellow trained for years with Dale Chihuly, the famous glass blowing artist that we learned about in Seattle recently.   Many on board were familiar. 

He made several items as he joked and told stories. 

He invited Glen from Canada, whom we had eaten breakfast with this morning, to help him blow a glass ornament. Good fun!  I forgot  to mention that it was Pyrex glass he was using, so the ornament could be bounced on the hard surface without breaking. 

Some of his wares....

I'm not a big collector  but they were lovely.

Scenes steaming down the Main river. By the way, the Main river is pronounced  Mine....I learned after several times of incorrectly saying it....

We will be in Frankfurt in the morning,  where we will do another  "ship swap".  We will leave the current boat, they will take our bags to the next ship in Koblenz where we will meet it after a couple of activities and bus rides tomorrow late afternoon....all part of the adventure! 

Wurtzberg, Germany

 

Buckle up,  lots of photos today!  Touring Wurtzberg, Germany 

The Marienberg Fortress was home to the prince bishops for over a 1000 years before they moved to the Residenz across the river. We won't tour the Fortress, but will get a guided tour of the residence. 

The front entrance of the residence  

Inside it's stunning. 

Our guide gave us information about many of the frescoes that I would have never figured out. 

This grand staircase lead from an open area that the carriages drove thru to drop guests. 

We went from room to room, gazing at the ornate surroundings.  Much of this was destroyed and rebuilt after WW2....I'm just going to load many photos. I don't really have commentary- I believe they just had these lavish rooms to show off their wealth....crazy details all around. 

Out to the gardens. 

A final look before heading out on our own to do some more touring.

A lovely city.

Killian's Cathedral

Street scenes.

Another view of the Marienberg Fortress 

St. Michael's Cathedral 

Some street art. 

St. Peter's Cathedral 

And getting late in the day, time for a restroom break.  This is the lady's stall....hmmmm....I made it work!

But this is the hallway leading to the restrooms.....a clear view for all to see thru this window to the urinals....sorry, I just thought it was funny.

Back to the boat for dinner and castle off!