Würzburg

Lower Franconia’s capital is one of Germany’s oldest cities: in 2004, Würzburg celebrated its 1300th anniversary.  

The fortress Marienberg is the city’s most famous landmark and its oldest parts date back to 704 AD. It overlooks the old city center and the river Main, an affluent to the Danube. 

Würzburg is also the main producer of Franconian wine; Franconia’s most famous winery, the Würzburger Stein, is located within the city’s municipal area. 

The Würzburger Residenz is a world-famous Baroque building at the outskirts of the inner city which served as a residency for Würzburg’s bishops from the 13th to the 18th century. In 1981, the Residenz, its Court Gardens and the Residenzplatz were declared UNESCO World Heritage Site, being “the most coherent and exceptional of Baroque palaces of all time”. In 2010, the Würzburger Residenz, the Fortress Marienberg and the Old Main Bridge – Germany’s oldest stone bridge – served as filming locations for the Hollywood movie The Three Musketeers. 

Founded in 1582, the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg is Bavaria’s oldest university. It was at the university’s Institute of Physics that Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) discovered the existence of X-rays on November 8, 1895. This discovery made him the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. 

On October 13th, 1945, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), which has played a major role in Bavarian politics ever since, was founded in Würzburg.