Würzburg, Germany

We had a great weekend exploring more of Germany.  Because the LDS temple in Frankfurt is closing for renovation soon we thought it would be a good idea to visit before it was too late.  The temple was beautiful, and the grounds were very nice.  We had a great session and glad we got the opportunity to be in such a beautiful place.

On our way back from the temple Jordan and I went to Würzburg.  The city of Würzburg was destroyed during World War II, but has since been rebuilt.  It is well worth a trip to see!

Our first stop was to St. Kilian's Cathedral.  The cathedral has many beautiful pieces of art: a menorah representing the Old Testament, tombstones of past prince-bishops, a crucified Christ, as well as a resurrected Christ riding a golden disc welcoming its viewers into a hopeful future.

    

We left the chapel through the side door, and entered into the street leading to the Market Square (Germans call it the Marktplatz). The square is bustling with people shopping, enjoying an afternoon pastry, and a cold glass of local white wine.

Fountain in the center of the marktplatz

At the end of the square and shopping area is the Old Main Bridge (Alte Mainbrücke).  This isn't the town's "main" bridge; but it is on the Main (pronounced mine) River. The Main bridge is the second-oldest bridgein Germany, and is lined with 12 statues of saints and prince-bishops of Würzburg.

From across the bridge you can see vineyard laced hills and the Marienberg fortress looming overhead.  The fortress was the residence of the prince-bishops before the opulent Resident was built.

The Fortress is rebuilt after being destroyed by the Swedish in the 17th-century

The view looking back on the city from the Old Main Bridge

The main attraction in Würzburg is too large to be missed, the Residenz Palace.  The palace was the home of the prince-bishops of Würzburg who once held both the political and spiritual power.  Jordan and I took a 45-minute tour of the main apartments of the palace for 15 euro.  We learned interesting history about the grand rooms, the 3-D art, and the large massive fresco by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

Beautiful fountain at the front of the Residenz

The entryway of the Residenz is very big; large enough that it once was used as an indoor circular driveway for carriages with at least six horses.  At the top of the entryway stairs is a 7,000 sq ft Tiepolo Fresco. The ceiling features the four continents at the time: America, Africa, Asia and Europe.  Did you know that America was thought to be the least civilized continent?  In the painting Ms. American has a dark cloud of unenlightenment hovering over a her head while she rides an alligator.  Ms. America...sounds like a babe who knows how to party.

The ceiling illustrates the greatness of Europe, Wurzburg, and the Prince-Bishop

As you walk through the different halls and wings of the Residenz each room gets more lavish and detailed.  The frescos that decorate the sealing were made quickly because the material dried very fast.  One of our favorite rooms was the Green Lacquer Room.  We liked its silver-leafed walls and it had the coolest wooden inlaid floors.  The ceilings were so cool to look at, but after about an hour of looking up our necks were hurting!

The glorious imperial hall with 3-D art on the ceilings 

Amazing detail of the rooms

After exploring the inside of the Residenz living quarters we checked out the imperial chapel and the residenz gardens.  The imperial chapel was the exclusive chapel of the prince-bishop.  While the walls may look like marble, they aren't.  It is a manufactured marble made out of plaster, so that pigments could be added to create the perfect coloring.

The Residenz gardens were beautiful, and we walked through the three different sections: the French, the English and the Italian. The French section has statues of Greek Gods and carefully trimmed conical trees. The English section is like a local city park, and the Italian section, uses terraces to create the illusion of a spacious backdrop of Versailles.

Can you see all three types of parks?

We loved walking through the parks

We had a great day in Würzburg, and were amazed by what this mid-sized city had to offer in terms of sightseeing.

Mariánské Lázně, Czech Republic

We were excited to take our first trip to the Czech Republic together.  We set our GPS for the beautiful city of Marianske Lazne. It took us an hour and twenty minutes from Vilseck to Marianske Lazne and we got to test out the speed of our new Volkswagen on the autobahn!

Marianske Lazne is the second largest spa town in the Czech Republic and has gained popularity from its many mineral springs-40 of which emerge in the town itself.  All of the beautiful hotels along the main street have lavish spas where you can enjoy mineral baths and the healing effects of  the mineral waters.

We loved admiring the streets lined with beautiful hotel

We bought a drinking ladle and went to the Křížový Pramen: a corinthian pavilion containing lots of different ferrous, salty, and carbonated mineral waters.  It is believed that people drink these waters to cure different ailments.  Some of the waters were gross, one tasted like the dead sea and another tasted like copper pennies.  Yuck.  After trying a few others we agreed that we liked the Rudolfuv Pramen (Rudolph's water) the most.  Rudolfuv water is known to have benifical medicinal and anti-inflammatory effects, we liked that it was carbonated and didn't taste too salty!

Jordan enjoying the carbonation and high calcium content of  Rudolfuv water.

We enjoyed listening to the singing fountain (it sung Celine Dion for about an hour) as we walked along the main colonnade, and admired the elegance of the spa parks.

The beautiful singing fountain in front of the main colonnade

The parks were designed over 150 years ago, and are preserved and maintained to this day

After all of the walking and exploring we were hungry for some traditional Czech food. Jordan was excited to find an authentic meal, he had only been dreaming about svickova na smetane for the past five years? We found ourselves some svíčková na smetaně- a dumpling dish served with meat, carrot/parsley/celery puree, whipped cream, and cranberries.  A Czech dumpling is nothing like any dumpling served in the states, rather it is more of a steamed bread made of either wheat or potato.  It was a very tasty lunch and very filling.  We indulged in a local specialty dessert, "spa wafers" which were huge wafers filled either hazelnut or chocolate.

Delicious svickova na smetane

Enjoying our traditional Marianske Lazne wafer!

We took a hike to an outside garden called the miniaturpark.  The miniaturpark has displays of famous buildings from the Czech Republic.  We found lots of places that we want to go visit together, and has gotten us excited about our next visit.

We had a wonderful introduction to the Czech Republic as a married couple.  I was thoroughly impressed by Jordan's ability to speak such a hard language, and took such a pleasure in seeing how excited he was to finally be back in his mission country.  I have come to the conclusion that while you may be able to physically take Jordan out of the Czech Republic, but you most certainly cannot take the Czech Republic out of him.  We had such a fun adventure and cannot wait to come back again very soon.

Regensburg, Germany

After settling into our new home we are beginning to explore Germany.  Jordan had his first 4-day weekend and we wanted to get out and see what the surrounding cities had to offer.  Our first destination was Regensburg! It took an hour and a half by train from Vilseck to Regensburg.

Regensburg is one of Germany's oldest towns, and was relatively spared from Allied bombings during World War II.  The town has a great combination of historical medieval architecture and modern shopping. There is a gothic cathedral in the center of the Old Town called the Cathedral of St Peter's-we were mesmerized by the majestic size of it!

Modern and Medieval 

St. Peter's Cathedral

Strolling through the narrow cobble stone streets and alleyways was a great way to check out the local cafes, shops and fresh outdoor markets.

The streets were filled with shoppers looking to buy all sorts of goods.

We were hungry for some authentic German food and found just what we were looking for.  We were seated outside by the old town hall at the Regensburger Ratskeller. Jordan had weisswurst (white sausage) with a pretzel, and I had sauerkraut and bratwurst for lunch. It was so delicious, and we enjoyed it!

We loved the homemade honey mustard!

We found a shop that specialized in rotenburger schneeballen (snowball cake) which is a pastery made of shortcrust pastry rolled into balls.  Ours was filled with dark chocolate and covered by a dark chocolate shell.

Rotenburger Schneeballen filled with either dark chocolate, marzipan or nougat 

We didn't have a guide, or any places in particular to go, so we strolled along the Danube River and took in the beautiful views around us.  We had a great first exploration, walking a total of 14.5 miles, and we can't wait to see where the next trip takes us!