Fri 8 Aug- Karlstadt and Wurzburg

http://hutchings.smugmug.com/ (photos)

Fri 8 Aug- up early for an all day tour. We got off the ship in Karlstadt, and went by bus to Wurzburg for a tour of the Residenz, the palatial home of the Bishop of Wurzburg. It's not your expected simple monestary, rather a palace in which to entertain (and politically guide) the rulers of the area. As such, it had a staff of hundreds, and a guest list of hundreds more. We only saw a few of the hundreds of rooms, but the ones we saw were emulating Versailles and other 'over the top' palaces. It was meant to impress and awe anyone who visited. The room of mirrors was especially noteworthy. There were mirrors everywhere, including the ceiling (to give those in the know an advantage in card games). It was totally destroyed during WWII, but rebuilt exactly as the original by a mirror maker expert, who went by painting, drawings, and photos of the pre-war splendor. There is a rose garden outside, but after some of the ones we've seen, it's not that impressive.
We had a typical Bavarian lunch at a nearby restaurant - about a pound hunk of roast pig with potato dumplings and gravy; and then a great cherry dessert with coffee. It was all delicious, but quite filling. Kiyomi could not finish hers, and I had no room left to help.
Then we went to a wine tasting of Franconia wine from the Walter Erhard winery (www.weingut-erhard.de) in nearby Volkach. It's a family operation, and only a few dozen acres, so they specialize in highest quality wines and limited sales. We tasted a 2007 Saignee sparkling wine, 2006 Riesling Kabinett, 2006 Kerner (my favorite, it's somewhat sweet, unlike the Riesling that although very nice, was fairly dry) and finally 2006 Domina red (lots of flavor and fairly dry, overpowered me).
Back at the ship, we enjoyed the Captain's dinner, although we were still full from lunch, we enjoyed the hors d'ouvers, rich creamy soup, salad, beef for Stan and sea bass for Kiyomi, and baked Alaska with a fireworks parade finished it off.