Onto the Romantic Road starting at Wurzburg and heading south

The green man walking sign is much more fun than ours in the UK!

Mainz was interesting enough, a city much like many others, with road works! Although famous for the Gutenberg museum of the printing press and first printed bible, in the end we didn’t actually go there. Our first stop off was in a shopping centre, not usual for us, but it was while building the Romerpassage centre in 1999 that they found a huge Roman archeological site, the Heligatum der Isis und Mater Magna. Olga, on the desk was coy with her English, but then asked if it would be ok if she took us down there, as it was very dark, making it difficult to read the English guide book. Our own 40 minute private tour was fab, for the cost of a donation. Did we mind? I don’t think so!

The Roman ruins in Wurzburg found in 1999 while building the shopping centre above

The lady in the tourist information was our most disappointing to date, she had her spiel but was not particularly helpful when I asked her about the statue in the market square.

One of the many Roman artefacts found in the ruins. This is a small lead engraving containing a curse directed at a wronged person and left for the Mater Magna to enact. The finds weren't all curses, many of them were small offerings giving thanks and hoping for a happy afterlife

The Augustinekirche and St Stephan Kirche cathedral

We visited the cathedral, Augustinekirche and St-Stephan-kirche with some blue stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall. We walked along the riverfront and said goodbye to the Rhine before a quick trip to the museum of ancient seafaring where they have rebuilt life size models of a Roman flotilla from small sections of 1800 year old wood. All interesting, but nothing stunning.

This was the statue in the market square the lady in the Tourist Office didn't elaborate on. There are four helmets (or headgear) in bronze arranged around the base...

...Here's a close-up. Apparently its a fox, with three mice behind

We decided parking in Frankfurt was all too difficult, so we went straight to Wurzburg, the first place on our Romantic Road journey. I thought we were going to miss the Rhine but we seem to now be on the Main, which isn’t quite in the same league but still has cruise boats and barges. Despite a nearly 2 hour drive, a long one for us, we made it to the tourist information just after lunch having not been able to park in a ‘legitimate’ space. It’s the first time on this trip we’ve seen parking like this. It slightly freaked us, is this how the whole of the Romantic Road will be? Our helpful lady didn’t think so, but seemed a little surprised herself, though she did point out that Friday was All Saints Day, a public holiday so it would be a long weekend. (Stellplatz location: 49°47'52.6"N 9°55'22.9"E)

The remains of a Roman ship, found at the bottom of the Rhine

Here's what it might have looked like in Roman times - scary huh?

Due to this she said if we wanted to go to the Röntgen memorial, that Brian was interested in it would have to be today as part of the university, it would be shut on Friday. Röntgen discovered x-rays in 1895 and won the first Nobel prize in 1901. They have preserved his laboratory and there was some interesting information, it just felt a bit odd wandering about in the university completely unchallenged.

The room in the university in which Röntgen discovered X-Rays in 1895. We just walked into the university unchallenged and found the room! It was advertised as a museum and an accompanying display told us all about his famous discovery and how X-Rays were first used as entertainment, in the days before it was known that prolonged exposure to them could be harmful

The Warzburg Residence - a photo I am proud of!

A quick dash would get us to the Wurzburg Residence, built in the 18th century as the home of the local prince-bishops. We got there for the English tour, and glad we did as this also took us through rooms you can’t take yourselves through. It is one of the most important baroque palaces in Europe and is on UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage list. 5 rooms escaped bombing in the war including the staircase roofed by an unsupported vault with one of the largest frescos ever created. It is showing the ‘four’ continents (no Australia or Antarctica) but with limited information at the time, the animals are all a little ‘random’! The chandeliers and tapestries are all original having been stored elsewhere. 

A forbidden photo of the staircase - don't tell anyone!

They had tried to store the mirrors from a completely mirrored room, but had been unable to remove them from the walls. This room was recreated in 1987, making 40 sumptuous rooms to visit, but sadly not photograph. This is the sort of place we often don’t actually want to pay for, but in this instance are so pleased we did. €7.50 each well spent. It was stunning, plasterwork moulded and painted to look like fabric and frescos so beautifully painted that they really did look 3D. The gardens too were lovely but we did dash, rather than risk being locked in.

Another forbidden photo. This is of the fresco on the ceiling of the stairwell showing the known (at the time) four continents of the world. They told us this is the largest fresco in the world, even larger than that in the Sistine Chapel in The Vatican

A good-natured halloween parade in Wurzburg

After dinner in Ted we decided to venture out to see if Halloween was an event and to have a gluwein in the market. Failed at that, the market was shut for the day, but did manage to find a little Halloween parade to look at. Friday was wet, but a lot warmer than the previous week, though not as wet as forecast, there was no sun for Ted. 

The imposing Festung Marienberg in Wurzburg

We went to the Festung Marienberg a huge great fortress looking down over the town, hulking and impregnable we had to wonder why they had needed to build the Residence. 

The lovely rebuilt 'old town' of Wurzburg. Rebuilt almost as it was before the Royal Air Force destroyed 90% of the buildings in 20 minutes, killing 5000 people on 16th March 1945. It was four years later in 1949 that the Geneva convention made it illegal to bomb civilian targets, prompted by such things as this.  

The appealing Wurzburg streets

The Lonely Planet guide recommends visiting the Grafeneckart before going up, but sadly we didn’t find it open till after. It suggests going first as it is a model of what Wurzburg looked like after the 16th March 1945 when 1000 tons of explosives was dropped on the city, in 20 minutes, killing 5000 citizens. You can then see how the city has been rebuilt. We came out of this exhibition a little sobered, Wurzburg had no industry, and was bombed with incendiary bombs, as were many other towns, probably just to “demoralise the population”. It was one of the last major German cities to be bombed and had only been listed as a secondary target, so may have survived except for ‘favourable’ weather conditions.

The Glockenspiel in Wurzburg doing its 13:00 hour display

We did the requisite cathedral and churches before returning to Ted, finding a ‘legitimate’ space had come available we nipped into it, really just to try for a little electricity. We were fortunate in that again, someone had left about half a Kw/h which is enough for Ted and charging the computer.

We are running a little low on gas, having had to run the heating, our 15l drinking water carrier has developed a leak and my bedside light has an intermittent switch. We are passing Erwin Hymer World, so we thought this would be a prime place to fix all these problems. Sadly they are moving the factory, have shut the shop and do no service, or gas, on a Saturday! Failed there then, just as well none of it was vital. 

Big Ted in the campsite in Wertheim from the castle tower

Wertheim was our destination, it’s not on the actual route, but the first place only has three parking spots, so perhaps not ideal on a holiday weekend. Doris however failed at her mission to get us to our planned parking spot, she decided the overpass we were meant to be parking under was her aim and we could just jump off! We had spied a few mobilehomes parked up on the other side of the river in a lovely spot. Could we find out how to get there? Yes we could, it’s lovely. We were van number 5 though there were 15 overnight. In theory it’s €3 more, but only if someone actually comes to get the money! (Campsite location: 49°45'44.0"N 9°31'07.7"E)

Beautiful Wertheim and its castle on the hill

We crossed the bridge into town, found Saturday market and the church before heading up to the castle. Great old ruin to wander around, plus from the top tower we had a great view of Ted the bridges over the river and the access road to what had been our intended parking. We spent a very anorak 15 minutes watching vans on the road, go to the underpass, decide it was rubbish and cross the river. We also saw one miss the turn off, as we had, get here, plan his route and go back to the underpass. We think he’s now parked up beside us. Talk about indecisive.... we are becoming champions carpark watchers, which we know is really very sad, but you know, when you have to make your own entertainment....

The market square in Wertheim

The sun is trying, we have free WiFi and a chilled Sunday planned, except that Brian is getting a little twitchy in that we’ve only got 40 days or so, should we be ‘wasting’ one? It won’t be wasted when I cook him a veggie curry from scratch later!

The castle tower taken from another bit of the castle. Beyond is the River Main and, on the opposite bank just visible is Big Ted

A bit more of the castle

Expansive views from the top of the tower. The campsite on the other bank is where we are, but there's another motorhome park on this bank, up on the left under the road, just past where the River Tauper flows in from the left to join the Main (which in turn joins the Rhine). We spent an interesting 15 minutes or so watching motorhomes driving along the road by the river on this bank looking for the motorhome park under the road (as we did). Some found it, didn't like it and came to ours, but finding it is not easy. We struggled and it was amusing watching others make the same mistakes as us, re-rout, reverse back and generally get lost

A last couple of photos. We heard first the loud noise these birds made and then went out to see their large formations in the sky above us. This was just one of many migrating birds

Here's a close-up of some. Not sure what they are, geese or crane