We had made good time getting through the many locks at night and then had to queue in the morning for our allotted time. It was a beautiful morning and we wished we had known we’d have a several hour wait as we could have had a bike ride along the river or a decent walk instead of staying in bed.

As it was we had a good brisk walk up and over the neighbouring bridge before it was time for lunch and our afternoon excursion to Würzburg. It was quite scenic on on one side with a bike path and playground and on the other side (our side) a factory. That seems to be quite typical in the towns.

There were a number of boats all tied up waiting for their turn and some were lying very low in the water as they took on water as ballast rather than lowering their deck. Our sky deck was closed and the bridge was lowered down so that we could get under the many low bridges. When we got back to the boat we found the cleaning staff had made our towels into cute little dogs.

We caught buses to the town and our boat sailed on with those that stayed aboard, eventually docking in central Würzburg.

Our guide in Würzburg was excellent. Very direct and she moved us along at a reasonable pace. There are 5 groups for each outing: yellow, green, red, blue and white. The white group is supposed to be for those that don’t like too much walking and want to go slow but there are a number that should be in white but go with the other colours and then want the guide to slow down, which is frustrating. We all pick up this transmitter thing and plug in our ear pieces and then each local guide uses a different channel. It works pretty well as long as you don’t get too far behind the guide.

Würzburg has a palace.

It’s where there was a prince bishop (ie the bishop got made into a prince) and therefore had all the wealth of the church and state behind him. He had built a pretty nice 600+ room castle up on the hill but decided he needed something a bit bigger so set out to build a 1600 room palace – but it got a bit costly so was scaled back to only 1100 rooms.

It was badly damaged in WWll but the beautiful fresco ceiling in the entrance hall was saved thanks to the efforts of an American architect who was stationed nearby at the end of the war. He arranged for a temporary roof to be installed over the ceiling to protect it.

Only part of the palace has been restored inside but they have recreated about 20 rooms, with each successive meeting room being more ornate and outrageous than the next. Some of the artwork and tapestries are amazing and it was grea to have it explained by the local guide.

You can’t take photos inside so I bought the souvenir postcard book and have photographed those.

Outside are some really lovely gardens.

The rose garden will be fabulous in a couple of weeks. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed just wandering through the various gardens. .

We had a glass of rose at the palace cafe then headed down into the town and checked out the cathedral and central bridge where there were loads of people drinking wine and enjoying their public holiday on May 1st.

Evidently it’s a typical local thing to do as the bridge is closed to traffic at certain times.

That night after dinner we had entertainment from a local oompah band. Very German: a trumpet, clarinet, trombone, accordion and euphonium (slightly smaller than a tuba.) They were good in a folk music kind of way.