Day 11 (12th July) Wurzburg in Honeymoon

We got to spend a day at Wurzburg. It was a Saturday so the main market place was very busy. It was set up like a flea market but there were peope selling all kinds of stuff, from pots and pans to vacuum cleaners.

Before the market place, we went to the Price-Bishop's residence palace for a tour and the adjacent royal garden, and that was the highlight of the day. The ceiling fresco is very ornate and detailed, and the waiting rooms were extravagantly decorated. We had a lot of fun in the garden too, taking silly pictures. They must spend a lot of effort maintaining the garden; shaping the plants into geometric shapes.

We came back to the ship for lunch, and then went out again to hike up the little 'berg' across the main to the castle. We took a detour along the way to use a bathroom, but I was surprised at how detailed the Google Map is - they even have information about tiny walk paths a meter wide. The distance to the castle was not great, but it was a steep climb, most of it on those meter-wide walking paths shown by Google maps. When we got to the top, the view was totally worth it; you can see everything on both banks of the Main, for miles and miles on either side. The castle itself was interesting too; it was a fortress where the Price-Bishops lived before they moved into town in the Baroque era. So we could clearly make out the remanants of the outer fortress wall, mote, draw bridge, inner fortress wall, watch tower, etc, etc. The walk back down was much easier than the way up since the streets are more identifiable, but still took 20 mins.

The Main is a windy little river that is narrow and shallow, so our ship doesn't have its engine on full power, and often I feel like we are on a giant row boat gliding across the river, with top of shrubs on either side (the water level was low on the Danube this year, but it seems like the level is high here - I don't actually see the banks because the water level were at shrub-top level). So it felt very serene. However, there are many annoying little dams littered all over the river, and it takes a while to go through the locks. They are so short - for some of them, even when we were at the lower level, I think the top of the ship is still higher than the top level - I really wonder how much electricity they can actually generate.

After dinner, we had a glass-blower demonstration on the ship. He didn't do much (there is only so much you can make with just a blowtorch) - he made some glass fibre cable, a bulby christmas ornament, and demonstrated how not to blow glass - but he was very funny, and very informative. He teaches in the States in his free time and I feel that he is one of those teachers that are effective and connect to the students very well. So I had a great time.

I left the demo early though, to watch the 3rd place play-off in the World Cup. I slept very well.