Travelling from Heidelberg via Frankfurt we headed to Würzburg in Bavaria. The Lonely Planet book implied there was a few things to see including a UNESCO listed Bishop's Palace and an impressive fortress on the hill overlooking the town.

The journey took about two and a half hours and had us travelling through some nice snowy scenery too.

Würzburg was a really nice place and despite being pretty much flattened in WW2 much of the town has been rebuilt in a more traditional style. There is still a fair amount of new build, but generally the city had a pleasant feel about it.

The Christmas Market was open when we arrived (making this #5 of the trip) but given many of the stalls where 'much of a muchness' we didn't spend too long looking at what was on offer.

Having wandered through the central area we headed for the Marienberg Fortress in the hilltop overlooking the city. The walk had us ambling last vast vineyards that surround the fortress as we climbed up the hill - it was a very pleasant walk indeed. Sadly you could only visit the courtyard area of the fortress as the main museum was closed for the winter months. The restaurant was however open and serving a limited number of dishes - the sausage and bratkartoffel (for me) and cheese späetzel (for Heather) was pretty good.

Once back down in the city we crossed to The Residenz (Bishop's Palace) a rather impressive baroque building with stunningly restored interiors. The building was pretty much gutted following bombing raids in the city in WW2 but the work undertaken to bring the building back to its former glory were stunning.

Würzburg is probably worth another visit in the future.

Our return journey to Heidelberg was firstly on an ICE to Mainz. This was a little bit out of our way, but we could, so we did, and it made little difference to our booked arrival time in Heidelberg. That said, our connecting train was running fifteen minutes late, but that gave us an opportunity to visit the Christmas Market 'am Bahnhof' (#6 of the trip) to have a glühwein between trains. I quite liked the concept of setting up a small market - still selling the normal food/drink offerings - outside the station. It seemed to be well frequented and we got ourselves another glühwein mug/glass for the collection too.

Sometimes a late running train has an upside!