Garten Eden Würzburg (D)

Würzburg

Name origin

Virteburch (Old High German, = the meaning of the word Virc/Würz is disputed; possible meanings include wurz=herb, werz=virgin, urzi=mountain or virtus=virtue. The second part of the word, Burch, stands for castle/fortress) --> Wirzaburg, Wirciburc, Vvirziburg

First documented mention

704 AD

Population

128,000

Area

87.63 km²

Federal state

Bavaria

Administrative region

Unterfranken

District

/

Vehicle registration

WÜ

River

Pleichach-->Main

The Club Garten Eden is located in Würzburg-Sanderau.

"Am I already in Bavaria?" the unsuspecting stranger asks himself as he heads south from Hanau on the A3, and near Heidingsfeld the Festung Marienberg, the landmark of the first big city on his route, already looms towards him from afar. "But of course!", every Würzburger will indignantly protest, shaking his head in disbelief at such an unqualified question. And truly, the old pilgrim city on the Main, which itself already takes a marked turn south near Hanau, lies far south of the Mainlinie and thus also well below the generally recognised Weißwurstäquator, which pushes Würzburg firmly into the traditional Bavarian territory. Only die-hard Altbaiern will voice a different opinion on this.

Fact is, the settlement, Celtic in the mists of time, can look back on a proud Franconian history and was already a Franconian ducal seat in the year 604. At the Reichstag zu Würzburg in 1168, the city became a prince-bishop's residence. The result of this history: the Würzburger Residenz, completed in 1781, according to UNESCO the most extraordinary of all baroque palaces of one of the most brilliant princely courts of Europe, showing in its mighty staircase the largest continuous ceiling fresco in the world and, with its Spiegelsaal in the Kaiserquartier, the most perfect Rococo interior artwork. Significantly involved in this magnificent building as well as further Würzburg structures was, incidentally, Balthasar Neumann, whose portrait still graced the last series of 50-DM notes.

Not that the city lacks other proud buildings: besides the Festung Marienberg, one might mention the Neubaukirche of the Alte Universität, the Marienkirche, the Alte Kranen, the Rathaus with Grafeneckart, the Käppele, the Huttenschlösschen, the Hof Marmelstein, the Frauenzuchthaus, the Alte Mainbrücke and the Neue Universität.

Würzburg is one of Germany's most important and tradition-rich university towns; Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered here in 1895 the X-ray radiation named after him. The founding of today's Julius-Maximilians-Universität dates back to the year 1402, making it the oldest university in Bavaria and the fourth-oldest in Germany.

However, the once Franconian duchy has only belonged to Bavaria since 1802. Under the Wittelsbach dynasty, the city grew into a community of 100,000 inhabitants by the beginning of the 20th century. Today it is the seat of the government of Unterfranken. Würzburg is an important transport hub for road and rail traffic and lies on one of the routes of the network of Jakobswege to Santiago de Compostela. For several decades, the city has also liked to call itself Europastadt, referring to the work of Hannsheinz Bauer.

Owing to its special location, Würzburg is the centre of Frankenwein and at the same time a brewery location rich in tradition. Würzburg is a city full of prospects and vitality between tradition and modernity, in whose Lusamgärtchen one can quietly remember Walther von der Vogelweide, who presumably died here in 1230, and whose large student population at the same time brings the city a pulsating life.

Well-known sons and daughters of Würzburg include Konrad von Würzburg, Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn, Luitpold von Bayern, Hildegard Luise von Bayern, Heinrich Kiliani, Paul Panzer, Alfred Jodl, Matthias Grünewald, Carl Diem, Werner Heisenberg, Josef Neckermann, Otmar Issing, Leo Kirch, Jutta Ditfurth, Thomas Bach and Dirk Nowitzki.