We left Burgen Tuesday morning driving down the banks of the Rhine from Koblenz to Mainz. The river was even broader than the Moselle and we spotted plenty of castles perched high up on the sides of the valley or occasionally in the middle of the river itself!

Würzburg is a city in Germany’s Bavaria region. It’s known for lavish baroque and rococo architecture and is commonly regarded as being the start of the ‘Romantic Road’ the most popular tourist route in Germany. We plan to follow that route south so more on that later.

We stayed for 2 nights at the city’s Stellplatz – basically a car park offering some facilities for motorhomes but allowing overnight stays for up to 2 or 3 days. They are cheaper than ‘proper’ campsites and usually much closer to the centre of the town. You can see from the picture below that there was not a lot of space but the view from our front window shows that we were looking straight on to the River Main – we could sit on our chairs in front of the van watching the cargo boats and passenger cruisers sail by.

On our first night we walked down the the Alte Mainbrucke, a bridge dating back to the 15th century. We encountered a delightful local custom – a huge crowd of people standing all over the bridge enjoying their evening glass of wine, bought from a kiosk at one end of the crossing – it seemed rude not to join in! At the same time we could watch a Viking cruise boat, probably heading from Budapest to Amsterdam, squeeze through the lock under the bridge.

The most spectacular building in the city is the ‘Residenz’, a UNESCO World Cultural Hertitage Site. Built in the 18th century for the local duke it is a huge work of baroque architecture full of amazing stucco ornamentation and Europe’s biggest ceiling painting. The palace was bombed by the RAF in 1945 and only the central core of the original work survived. A huge reconstruction project has been going on since the 1950’s and now the building has been restored to it’s former glory. Unfortunately no photos can be taken inside – so we can only show you the outside – for a look inside have a look at their website.

Here’s a glimpse of some of the other impressive buildings we found – all in the city centre: