Early morning train to Wurzburg. We all met at 0830 at the
tram stop and trooped to the track. All were accounted for,
and we assorted ourselves into groups for our Good Weekend
tickets, which gave us enormous discounts on the train fare.

It was a short, chatty trip, and we all gathered at our
meeting point with our guide for the city tour, a woman in
young middle age with an interest bordering on obsession
with church buildings.

We stopped at the imposing grounds of the Juliusspital, a
multipurpose social welfare organization founded by one of
the more progressive prince-bishops of the 16th century: it
encompasses a hospital, hospice, and rest home, but it's
most known for its winemaking - it owns the largest single
vineyard (over 400 acres) in Germany.

Then, in a shaded little courtyard near the cathedral, the
tomb of the mediaeval poet-musician Walther von der
Vogelweide, author of such top-sellers as Ah Where Are Hours
Departed Fled and and Closed to Me now Is Fortune's Gate.
In his day, these actually were top-sellers.

We were encouraged to spend a fair amount of time admiring
the many beautiful churches in the old city, reserving most
of our attention to the Cathedral of St. Killian (inside and
out) and the church of St. Mary (outside only).

Walked through the throngs at the Weinfest, and our tour
concluded at a Biergarten in the old town hall, a fitting
end point, but for lili and me, a bench at the Weinfest
beckoned, and at the Juliusspital booth we ordered a crisp
Schweinshaxe and a bottle of Julius Rotwein cuvee 14, which
was fruity and agreeable and went well with the big but not
too big serving of meat and the smallish but too big serving
of Kartoffelkloess.

At about half-past one we joined some of our group at an
ice-cream parlor on the way to the Residenz. I didn't have
anything. It was getting hot, and most of us scattered to
look for bottled water: some found little bottles for a
couple Euro at the tourist stands; other more enterprising
among us got bottles three times that size at a local
grocery store for 85c. Perhaps they could have been truly
enterprising and started a water concession.

2:05, and it was time for another encounter with an earnest
and scholarly historian for the tour of the castle's public
spaces. I prefer tours that include kitchens and dining
areas, because that's the way I am, in addition to the
uniformly ornate receiving rooms, which begin to bore me
after a while. I admit that the grandeur of the Tiepolo
frescoes of the four continents take your breath away, but
after a while one wants to breathe. All in all, this took
maybe an hour and half, and there was plenty of time for
another ice-cream parlor visit or (for me) a lie-down on
the steps by the fountain.

Our final visit was to the huge wine celler, the Staatliche
Hofkeller underneath the castle, with its impressive tuns
holding upwards of 600 gallons each. This was also designed
by Balthasar Neumann, who had been the architect of the
castle itself. Bunches of the usual propaganda about the
wonderful terroir and the history and expertise behind every
glass of elixir, that kind of thing. At the conclusion of
this, our reward was a taster glass of a young Riesling,
fresh and fruity, typical in style but with a more
pronounced peachy apricotty aroma than usual.

We had been an obedient little group, so our day concluded
a bit early; some of us decided to make good use of our
remaining hour and so had a drink at the Weinstube near the
train station belonging to this selfsame Juliusspital, where
I ordered a bottle of Domina 14 for the renegade red wine
tipplers. At a tad over $5 a glass, not too bad. I'm not
certain what the white people had - there were so many
choices by the glass, with even more interesting options in
bottle. I do remember someone giving me a taste of a
somewhat delicious Black Riesling, which looked and felt
like a red wine but tasted more like a white - an uneasy
combination. Turns out this isn't a Riesling at all but
another name for the Pinot Meunier.