Two Burgs in One Day

 On Tuesday we started the day in Würzburg, having a wine tasting at 10:30 in the morning! That was because those of us going to Rothenburg ob der Tauber would have an hour's drive ahead of us to get there and we would need free time after our walking tour of the town.

We went to the Bürgerspital Winery, one of the largest producers in Germany, although you'd never know it since they don't seem able to export any of it. The winery is owned by the Citizen's Hospital Foundation that was established in 1316 when Johannes van Steeren and his wife gave their property in Würzburg to the city to establish the hospital. Over the years it purchased and was given huge plots of land which have all been planted with grape vines, as well as expanding the number of senior citizen's homes and rehab centres it runs in the area.

The entrance to the Wine Cellar is through part
of the Seniors' Residence, so we were
required to wear our masks

Inside the cellars are some really
beautiful tasting areas...

...as well as some very decorative giant wine barrels

The winery has a huge amount of land in various areas near Würzburg, and produces Riesling, Silvaner and Pinot Noir wines. Apparently the maximum amount of wine allowed for each resident of the Spital's homes is still something like 8 bottles (according to some documents from the 1500s or so!!!). Our very informative and hugely funny guide told us two very important things: 1) the average life expectancy of people in the area was about 94 - maybe thanks to the wine; and 2) there's a very long waiting list to get a room.

Silvaner wine from Bürgerspital is always bottled in this short round bottle that looks like a Mateus Rosé bottle from Portugal (once again according to the guide, the Portuguese stole it from them!) because there was so much inferior plonk sold as Bürgerspital product that the winery had this special bottle made to ensure drinkers were getting the real thing....of course, we don't know what they did with the empties, do we?

One of two wines we tasted before
our bus had to leave for Rothenburg.

The Bishop's Residence in Würzburg - can't
resist that scaffolding!

We had about an hour to recover from the wine before we arrived at Rothenburg ob der Tauber, one of the few remaining medieval cities in Germany. It has quite a history, with a Roman settlement established before the 1st Century AD. It was held by various counts until being granted privileges as a Free Imperial City in 1274, and became one of the economic and religious centres of Franconia in northern Bavaria.

The city wall of Rothenburg. You can walk
quite a distance around the town along the covered
walkway. We didn't have time to do that.

The Marktplatz in front of the Town Hall. It
was quite warm out, and almost every restaurant
patio was full.

An event apparently occurred during the Thirty Years' War that is now replayed every hour from the clock tower in the Town Hall. In 1631, a Catholic count wanted to take over Rothenburg to house his thousands of troops. Rothenburg was a Protestant Lutheran city and refused, so they hunkered down against a siege. Unfortunately, according to our guide, they accidentally blew up their ammunition supply and the Catholics stormed in. The story known as the Meistertrunk or Master Drink says that the townsfolk offered the count a flagon of 3 1/4 litres of wine to try to spare the killing of the town's leaders. Rather than try to drink it himself, he proclaimed that if anyone could drink it all in one go, he would spare the town. According to legend, the mayor managed to do this, and the town was spared.

Now the count sits at one open window shaking his head while the mayor sits in the other window drinking the flagon dry once every hour.

The main cathedral of St. John in the centre of the town has a huge number of stained glass windows, especially behind the main altar. It is the parish church of our guide, and she said that there's nothing more uplifting that to see all of the colours shining in the sunlight at a morning service.

The Cathedral of St. Jacobus, or St. John

The main altar. Carvings done by who knows?
but the painters and gilders were all famous
at the time

A small hotel tucked down a lane near the
city walls.

One of the castle gates still from
the original days when Rothenburg
was under the rule of counts and princes

A look towards the city and the wall across
the valley from the castle gardens

One of the original town gates dating back
to before the town's expansion in the 1300s

And another one

We hadn't had too many chances to find somewhere to sit and have a beer and a glass of wine, but we were able to do just that in Rothenburg. It helped that we didn't need any new Christmas ornaments - the well-known Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas stores have their main location here in Rothenburg - so we left the shopping to everyone else and had some bratwurst along with our drinks.

After the walking tour was over, Larry
was looking for a beer

And since we were feeling peckish, we
shared a plate of Nurnberg wurst and sauerkraut

It was a lovely afternoon, and after an uneventful ride back to Würzburg we sailed out for our 'sea day' on Wednesday toward the Rhine River and Rüdesheim.