Weekend in Würzburg

We just went to Würzburg for the weekend! Carson ran a half marathon with several of our friends, and we spent the remainder of our time exploring the cute little Bavarian city. 

Our trip started in Münster! Lloyd arrived at 11pm the night before, and we got up early on Saturday morning to show him around the city a little bit before hitting the train station to head East. 

Jaime gave us a tour of the city when we arrived. We walked around the outside of Juliusspital, a winery owned by a private hospital. I can't find this information online, but I'm told that the proceeds of the wine actually pay for the stays of the patients inside, so that's a creative business plan!

Maypole at the Würzburg Cathedral. I haven't seen these in our part of Germany, but I'm told it's a big thing in Bavaria.

St. Killian Cathedral

Marienburg Fortress. We never made it up here, but we had a nice view of it from the bridge, Alte Mainbrücke. This is a place where tourists and I think locals go to drink wine. It's very popular and they sell wine by the glass out of the nearby windows. We went to dinner and then headed back there. 

Würzburg Residence 

That night, we went back to the hotel and enjoyed the American-style cheesecake that Jaime had picked up for us while playing a rousing game of Settlers of Catan. We had more players than we should, so Jordyn and I were a team. The game was very long and at one point we decided to just end it so some people could catch the tram back and so that everyone could get some rest before the race. We decided to make the winner the person with the highest points - and it was Jordyn and I with 8 Victory Points!

The Half Marathon

The race didn't start until 9, but everyone wanted to make sure they made it into the city before the trams stopped running, so they left at 7:30. I stayed behind at the hotel, along with Jordyn's friend, and we went into the city several hours later to meet the group toward the end of the race.

Our Fulbright racers.

While waiting for the tram, I received a text from Carson (yes, he texted while running) saying that the race route actually was very near our hotel, so Joel and I walked over there in time to see Jordyn race past and then Carson not far behind.

We made it into the city but had to walk a decent way (not 13.1 miles though!!) to get to the finish line. We met up with Jaime, who had finished in a little over an hour and a half, and she watched Lloyd, Jordyn and Carson run past on the way to the finish line with us. She ran in college, so she was their little trainer and cheerleader.

I also have to say that Carson put this face on to be funny. At least I think so!

By the time we'd located them in the crowd of finishers, everyone was enjoying their post race pretzels and snacks, along with (non-alcoholic) beer. All finishers were awarded a medal as well!

We walked back to the closest tram stop, Jordyn and Carson groaning at the sight of stairs. 

 After everyone had freshened up and we'd checked out of our hotel and then walked back into the city to meet up and get some lunch. 

Everyone got their own pizzas from Locanda for lunch. I too thought this was excessive, but I also didn't run a half marathon, so I kept my mouth shut while everyone else ate their entire pizzas. They were pretty cheap for such cheap ones - 7 Euro or so!

After we'd eaten, we all headed back to the train station where everyone said their goodbyes. Carson and I took a Flixbus to Frankfurt and then a train from there, enjoying a little 80mph ride on the Autobahn. 

Neuschwanstein Castle

We never need to see another castle again. We've seen THE castle, so why bother. 

Visiting Neuschwanstein Castle has been on my Germany bucket list for forever, and a big part of why I planned for us to visit Bavaria was based on making a trip here happen. It was built by poor King Ludwig, who had a weird thing about swans, a great fascination with opera, and really lavish taste. He died in a mysterious way, but his legacy lives in in the castle he never actually lived in. 

The castle is in the village of Schwangau, about two hours southeast of Munich. We took a train to Fussen and then a bus to Schwangau. The whole train was packed with other tourists who'd apparently been informed on our exact itinerary and all arrived in a swarm at the same time. Thankfully we'd reserved our tickets online (which we were told online was our only option - it was not), so we got a shorter ticket line. 

We had time to kill, so we walked around the touristy area before ascending the hill to the castle. We grabbed bratwurst and schnitzel for lunch at a little place and enjoyed the scenery.

Right by the ticket office there's another castle - Hohenschwangau. This one is available to tour as well and had we realized how close this one was and how doable it was in our long time waiting there, we'd have explored it too.

Carson has become quite chiseled here, living on the aforementioned bratwurst and schnitzel.

There are several options for getting to the castle, and Danita loved the horses so much that we decided to ride up in a horse-drawn carriage. The other options are to walk (about a mile uphill) or to take a bus, which wasn't running because of the snow. We didn't regret the carriage as we passed lots of other people slipping on ice or wheezing for breath in the cold. One thing Fern realized once we were halfway there though was that she is allergic to horses, a fact that became quite clear after one of them lifted up its tail, swinging horse dander or whatever it is that horses give off. She sneezed for the rest of the day and we were glad we'd decided to walk down later.

I try to crop it out of most of my pictures, but it's pretty common over here to see reconstruction on buildings. It seems that anytime we visit a famous place, there's a crane or some scaffolding blocking the pretty view.

Our time slot was 2:20 and once the clock strikes that time, you can scan your ticket, walk in the doors and pick up an audio guide. I'd wondered how they did the guided tours since people of so many languages visit the castle, but they just give everyone a little thing that looks like a tv remote and it plays the audio guide in whatever language you've chosen. Pictures aren't allowed inside which keeps the tours moving along quickly (but makes it sad later - let's just say it was magnificent) and the audio for each room activates when you pass a sensor. 

After our tour, we tried to head over and walk across the bridge that provides a view of the front of the castle (the view seen on my ticket above) but the path to the bridge was unfortunately closed because of the snow. I was disappointed (especially since the view we got was obstructed by construction), but we're hoping to have an excuse to go back to the area some other time so maybe I'll get to see the castle from the bridge in the not too distant future!

A little tumble in the snow...

The castle was easily the most impressive castle I've ever seen. And technically I HAVE seen it before - it's the castle in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and it inspired the Cinderella Castle at Disney.