Wuerzburg, begun in the 10th century, offers fabulous Rococo palaces built by the wealthy prince-bishops who once dominated the city. Nearly destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945, the city has labored long and hard to restore its lost magnificence, and its success has been such that many claim it is more beautiful now than ever before. The biggest attraction, the Residenz, is the Baroque palace in which the ruling prince-bishops lived after descending from their hilltop fortress. The palace was built in 1719 under architectural genius Balthasar Naumann, who dreamed up this structure, now considered the most stunning of Germany’s Baroque palaces. Near the palace stands the Old Main Bridge, which affords a great view of this historic city, and two impressive rows of saints’ statues, located near the Marienburg, another previous royal home.
Further down the Road sits unique Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber, which claims to be the best-preserved medieval town in Europe. Rothenburg’s city walls provide a history lesson in themselves. With entrance stairs every 600 feet, they?re the perfect place to take a walk and enjoy panoramas of the houses, steeples, and tiled roofs of the city and the countryside beyond. Within the walls you?ll find a Renaissance fountain, a city museum full of historical artifacts and interesting rooms, and a toy museum with dolls dating back to 1780. The Stadtpfarrkirch St. Jakob, or Parish Church of St. James, includes the world-famous Holy Blood altar, so called because above it hangs a crystal casket containing the church’s most precious relic, a few drops of the blood of Christ. Also not to be missed is the City Hall (Rathaus), a half-Gothic, half-classical structure housing a museum that traces Rothenburg’s role in the Thirty Years’ War.
