Information about Würzburg

Würzburg is a city in Germany, the capital of Lower Franconia on the banks of the Main, a former episcopal see, and today a university city with about 125,000 inhabitants.
It is about 70 minutes by train from Frankfurt and Stuttgart and 100 km from Nuremberg.

The image of him is formed by architectural masterpieces of different periods. Even from afar, the two towers of St. Charles Cathedral point the way into the city, the fourth largest Romanesque church in Germany. The Marienberg Fortress and Residence, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the Court Gardens and Residence Square, are other well-known Würzburg landmarks, as is the 180-meter Old Bridge over the Main. in length, with its imposing sacred figures. The location of the city, on both sides of the Main and nestled in the heart of idyllic vineyards, is another of its characteristics.

A notable city museum is located right in the Marienberg Fortress: it houses the largest collection of works by the famous sculptor and woodcarver Tilman Riemenschneider. The Kulturspeicher Museum in the old port has a more modern design and covers an area of ??3,500 square meters, exhibiting works from the 19th century to the present day.

History of Würzburg

It is known that the site of today's Marienberg Castle stood as early as 500 BC. C. a Celtic fort. Possibly founded in Roman times on the Celtic settlement of Uburzis. The place was Christianized in 686 by Irish missionaries, Saints Kilian, Kolonat and Totnan. The first diocese was founded in 742 by Saint Boniface, who appointed Saint Burkhard as the first Bishop of Würzburg.

The first church on the grounds of the current cathedral dates from 788 and was consecrated that same year by Charlemagne; the current building was built between 1040 and 1225 in a very sober Romanesque style.

The university was founded in 1402 and refounded in 1582. Wurzburg was one of the centers of the 16th-century peasant uprising (German Peasants' War); the castle was besieged, although it was not possible to take it. Important Bishop-Dukes include Julius Echter and members of the Schönborn family who created the Baroque city. On October 18, 1631 Gustav II Adolf of Sweden occupied the city and achieved the only capture of the Marienberg castle, the Swedish troops being expelled after their defeat at the battle of Nördlingen (1634).

In 1720 the foundations of the Residential Palace of Würzburg began, which has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It was the capital of the short-lived Grand Duchy of Wurzburg. On May 4, 1814 the city became part of the state of Bavaria. After stubborn resistance from the French garrison, they did not surrender until after the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1814).

During World War II, on March 16, 1945, two months before the surrender of Germany, the city was bombed by British aircraft, with a result of 90% destruction. The city had escaped allied bombing until now, but the plan to destroy all German cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants ended up also affecting the city, which had 107,000 inhabitants at the time. The baroque center of the city was irreversibly lost, but the main monuments have been slowly rebuilt (the Marienberg fortress was completed in the 1990s). Today many of the historic remains are identical replicas of the original buildings. Only the exterior walls and the interior monumental staircase remain original of the residential Palace.