UNESCO Town of Young Researchers
As third building in Germany, one of the most uniform and unusual baroque castles in Europe with its wonderful court garden and castle square, the „Residence of Wurzburg“ was listed in 1981 UNESCO world cultural heritage. The residence is the first highlight for everybody beginning his trip along the romantic street in Frankish Wurzburg. Architect Balthazar Neumann was head of this impressive building project. Constructing this three winged building with over 300 baroque and rococo rooms took 24 years (1720 - 1744). Once the palace was seat of mighty prince-bishops of the Schönborn line. Today it draws many visitors as a famous world heritage site. In the extensive and beautifully arranged court garden you can go for a walk, relax and enjoy a Bavarian beer.
Near the city centre lies on a hill the fortress Marienburg. Surrounded by vineyards it presents a spectacular view of the university town with its bridges, towers and churches. Already around 1000 B.C. there was at exactly the same place a Celtic castle that was not regularly inhabited, but served mainly as a place to offer shelter to local residents fleeing in times of danger. Centre of the later fortress is church Marienkirche that was consecrated in 706. It is the earliest sacred building eastern of the Rhine. The castle was founded in 1201 and was from 1253 to 1719 residence of Wurzburg‘s prince-bishops.
Worth seeing is also the old bridge over the river Main, called Mainbrücke which was built in the 15th century. At today's bridge spot Germany’s first stone bridge is said to has been built as early as 1120. Around 1730 the bridge was enriched by typical 4.5 metre high baroque saint's figures. Those figures had been destroyed in 1912 and used for road construction. During the bombings in 1945 they were strongly damaged but could be once more restored.
Nominated "town of young researchers", Wurzburg especially promotes grammar school pupils in 2014: Under supervision of scientists of the university they investigate, for example, cores of galaxies or the life of honeybees. In cooperation with the chair of X-ray microscopy, students can investigate still insufficiently answered questions regarding developmental stages and physiology of honeybees.
TIP: Visit the lab in which Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered the rays that were named after him. It is still untouched and can be visited in the X-ray examination-commemorative site. Beside the piece of equipment with which he discovered the rays, a cathode ray experiment, a screening experiment with X-rays and the historical auditorium of Röntgen can be seen.
More information: http://www.wuerzburg.de/en/index.html
Photo: canadastock/Shutterstock
