WURZBURG

Jake and I had the opportunity to go and visit the town Wurzburg a few weekends ago. We went specifically to see the Wurzburg Residenz. This elaborate building was originally for Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schonborn. It was a collaboration of distinguished designers from Austria, France, and Germany itself that built it from 1720-1780. When it was finally finished it had 300 rooms in total! Now Jake and I didn't get to tour all 300 rooms, but we did get to see our fine share.

The reason we weren't able to see all 300 rooms wasn't because we didn't want to but because they only had certain parts of the building open to walk around in. "On 16 March 1945, only a few weeks before the end of the Second World War, a devastating air raid destroyed 90 percent of the Würzburg old town. The Residenz was almost completely burnt out. From the attic the fire ate down through wooden ceilings and floors, and all the furnishings and wall panelling it had not been possible to store elsewhere were devoured by the flames." They decided to rebuild the majority of the building to show the beauty of the building to the public. With many of the original furnishings (saved from the fire because of where they were stored) they finally reopened the Residenz in 1987. It was amazing how accurately the were able to reconstruct the rooms that were open to see. In the main traveling hallways they also had small bio's and photos of some of the before and after. We weren't able to take pictures of that, but we did get some of the beautiful details. 

We had to be very sneaky and selective with what we took pictures of and where, because technically we weren't supposed to be taking pictures. (Hence Jakes head in one of the shots haha) After we toured the inside of the Residenz we continued our tour outside to the massive courtyard that accompanied the building.

It is truely amazing how well they were able to keep up the gardens to look like how they were originally designed. They sometimes change the types of flowers that are planted depending on the season, but overall, the shape and designs of the overall gardens stayed pretty much the same since 1774.

Jake and I really enjoyed our trip to the Wurzburg Residenz. The entire town of Wurzburg seems to have a lot of history behind it, and soon we'd like to go back and just explore the town itself. We'll probably wait until Duke can come with us though :)


Baby Watch:
-We have our next doctors appointment on Monday, October 25th. We are supposed to be able to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time!
-This Sunday will end my first Trimester, because I will be 12 weeks.
-We will hopefully find out the sex of the baby at week 16, so just a little over a month more :)


Prayer Requests:
-For our nugget to continue to grow healthily
-For Dukes leg to continue healing strong, so that we don't have to get surgery to heal it
-For Jake to train hard this week, his body to absorb it, and for him to do well on his PT test on Friday, the 22nd.
-For my headaches to become a little less frequent so that I am more capable of doing stuff around the house and such.


Praises:
-That we haven't had any complications with the baby this far
-That Duke seems to be healing well, and is picking up new training tricks such as down (lay down) and stay
-That Jake has been busy working on the aircraft itself rather than doing petty other small jobs
-That my "morning sickness" has 95% gone away, and I am able to do more than I was while I was feeling sick


Jake is going to be posting a blog soon about our experience at the dirt bike track this past weekend, so watch for it!

Love,
Bethany