We were docked at Würzburg when we woke up this morning and the view across the river to a fort and church was beautiful against the fall colors of the trees.

An early start this morning.  Everyone we had talked to said that we had to go to Rothenburg.  So we had signed up for two of the last places on the tour.  It was a 40 minute drive on the Romantic Route, through farming country and along the Tauber River.  Rothenburg is a well-preserved medieval city which, because of the 30 Years War, went into a decline and so remained without being renovated or rebuilt in a later style. So it is a still-walled city with narrow streets and half-timbered houses.  Everything is well maintained and it is a picture postcard Bavarian/Franconian town.

We had a lunch of potato soup, bratwurst, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes and strudel and were then turned loose on the town to explore and shop for an hour and a half.

We then returned to the buses and were delivered to the 18^th century Residenz of the Prince Bishop of Würzburg.  It was modeled after Versailles and has beautiful frescos by Tiepolo and amazing interior stucco work.  One half of the building did well during WWII, but late in the war, the other half was gutted by bombing and was painstakingly restored over the 40 years after the war back to its prewar magnificence, using photographs of the interior done by museum staff prior to the bombing.  Much of Würzburg was destroyed by Allied firebombing. We only have pictures of the exterior, since no photography is allowed inside. 

After return to the ship, we had a talk about the upcoming ship swap.  The water level on the Main is too low to allow passage once we are past Bamburg, so we will pack up tomorrow night and go by bus to Nuremberg and then join our new ship at Passau.  Meanwhile the people cruising from Budapest to Amsterdam will do the reverse and will join our old ship when we go to theirs. A pain, but better than converting to a bus tour from Nuremberg to Budapest.