Franconia

A late morning flight from London Heathrow to Frankfurt. By private coach to Würzburg, capital of one of Germany’s most influential bishoprics, for a visit to the massive Marienberg fortress, home of the prince bishops from the eighth to the early eighteenth centuries. Its wine cellars and commander’s apartments house an exquisite collection of stone and wood sculptures by Riemenschneider among many other treasures from episcopal country houses. In the late afternoon continue to your four-star hotel in Bamberg, one of the most beautiful small cities of Europe, where all five nights of this tour will be spent.

A day in Bamberg on foot to explore this unspoilt city. The morning is dedicated solely to the magnificent cathedral, combining Romanesque and Gothic elements, and embellished with fine sculpture, most notably the Bamberg Rider, icon of the Age of Chivalry. In the afternoon explore Bamberg’s beautifully preserved city centre, walking past the town hall, uphill to the Carmelite cloister with historiated capitals, and downhill to admire the handsome façades of Baroque mansions.

Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber – formerly an Imperial Free City – is almost perfectly preserved with its late mediaeval town walls and half-timbered houses – almost too romantic to be true. St Jakob, the town’s Late Gothic double-choired hall church, houses Riemenschneider’s stunning Holy Blood altarpiece. After lunch, another Riemenschneider ‘miracle carved in wood’ will be waiting for us in the remote pilgrimage church of Creglingen.

Bayreuth is home not only to Richard Wagner’s Festspielhaus, but also to great Baroque buildings, from the exquisite opera house to the landscaped park, hermitage and hugely entertaining grottoes of the Eremitage, built for Margravine Wilhelmine, favourite sister of Frederick of Prussia. Return to Bamberg via the great eighteenth-century basilicas of Banz and Vierzehnheiligen, embodiments of baroque stately grandeur and of rococo ‘meringue’ delicacy.

A morning excursion will take us to the privately owned Schloss Weissenstein, trendsetting Baroque summer palace of a Bamberg bishop, for a special tour around the private apartments and a superb 18th-century private collection of paintings. Return to Bamberg to visit the Diocesan Museum in the cathedral cloister, which has a stunning display of 1000-year old imperial vestments, above all the purple and gold embroidered stellar cloak of Emperor Henry II. The late afternoon and evening will be free for you to go on a boat trip on the river or to stroll through the cobbled streets with their attractive mediaeval and Baroque buildings.

A second visit to Würzburg will focus on the colossal prince-bishops’ palace, built by Balthasar Neumann in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The enormous ceiling fresco of the staircase miraculously survived disastrous air raids of 1945 and is testament to the genius of the Venetian Giambattista Tiepolo. After lunch in one of Würzburg’s best and most typical restaurants continue to Frankfurt for a late afternoon  flight to London Heathrow.