Wűrzburg, Marienberg Fortress (revisited)

Taken on my first visit to the castle since 1966 - see my earlier blip for general information about the town and its fortress.

The cream and red building on the top of the fortress housed the apartments of the Prince-Bishop.

The grapes on the side of the hill are part of what is probably Germany's oldest vineyard, dating back to the 8th century or earlier; the vineyard produces the prized Würzburger Stein wine.

St Kilian, an Irish priest martyred (with two fellow priests) in Wűrzburg in 689, is the patron saint of winemakers. The following two paragraphs have been borrowed from Wikipedia:

Saint Burchard, appointed by Boniface as the first bishop of Würzburg, built a cathedral on the spot where the martyrs were said to have met their deaths and had their relics unearthed and buried within a vault of that cathedral church.

Their skulls, inlaid with precious stones, have been preserved to this day. On St Kilian's day, a glass case containing the three skulls is removed from a crypt, paraded through the streets before large crowds, and put on display in Würzburg Cathedral.



[Blip added in July 2014]