The city of wine, bishops, and the most extravagant Baroque palace north of the Alps — where Tiepolo's staircase ceiling fresco is the world's largest single-artist ceiling, the Main River curves through terraced Franconian vineyards below a medieval fortress, and the Romantic Road begins its journey south toward the Alps
Würzburg (130,000) is the capital of Lower Franconia and one of Germany's foremost Baroque cities, rebuilt after 89% of the Altstadt was destroyed on 16 March 1945 — including the Residenz (1720–1744, UNESCO World Heritage) which survived with its interiors largely intact. The Residenz was built for Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn by Balthasar Neumann, with a ceiling fresco by Giambattista Tiepolo spanning the staircase hall — 677 square metres, the largest ceiling fresco painted by a single artist in the world. The Marienberg Fortress above the Main River dates to 1253 and s…
Würzburg has been a bishopric since 742 CE (founded by St. Kilian, who was martyred here in 689 CE and whose relics are in the Cathedral). The Prince-Bishops who ruled Würzburg as secular and ecclesiastical lords from the Marienberg Fortress for four and a half centuries were among the most powerful rulers in the Holy Roman Empire; their patronage funded the Neumann-Tiepolo Residenz and the city's 18th-century Baroque transformation. Würzburg was one of the epicentres of the German witch trials — the Würzburg witch trials of 1626–1631 resulted in the execution of around 300 people, including…