With the river, naturally there are also beautiful bridges. The old, Main bridge is a pedestrian bridge that has statues of patron saints of the city - most importantly St. Killian.
As we were crossing the bridge to go to the Burg (Castle), we learned about the Staustufe (locks) in the Main river. The river drops down pretty far, so every so often there are locks that let the ships down gently. There was one right under the Main Bridge and we arrived just as two ships were passing through. There could not have been 12" of room on either side of the canal for the ship that moved through.
We walked up the hill to the Castle. The castle has a museum inside now and it was difficult for the kids to fake interest in the painting and carvings and incredible collection of art from area artists. Penny and I saw some amazing things when the boys would let us. We knew that they would love to see the knights' armor and weapons. That was definitely their favorite part.....but also there was a nice view from this side of the river.
We came back down from the Burg and to the downtown area. We saw the place where Mary works - a tourism office right near the river. She walked us through the Rathaus (city Hall) and out onto the Marktplatz (Market Plaza). We decided to have lunch. We had lunch in a restaurant right on the Plaza. Finn has been crazy about Hawaii Pizza for some time, so he ordered one. Keane had a Ham Omlet. All I remember about lunch was the Wheat beer. It was nice to sit down and rest for a few minutes.
After lunch, we were in the Fussgaenger zone (Pedestrian Zone), which was always one of my favorite parts in any German town. This is the main, downtown shopping area. It's a great place to window shop and people watch. The products and the prices and the people are so different, that I could easily fill up an entire afternoon.
We stopped by the tourism office to find out if there were any playgrounds for the kids nearby. The good playgrounds were far away, so we would have to drive to them. We made it to the Cathedral in the city center, which was very impressive - even to the boys. Penny took many pictures inside.
Mary had really wanted to show us the Residenz - the home for the Bishop, which is very ornate and very famous, but the boys were at the end of their ropes and we could tell that it wouldn't be a good idea. We decided to stay in the Pedestrian area and walk around a little more. We stopped by a bookstore for a few minutes - which was very interesting for ME. I wanted to buy lots of books, but managed to resist for now. We bought some good books for the kids though.
We also stopped by a department store (Mueller) where the boys bought some Lego toys and used the bathroom! Just as we were leaving, it started to rain a little bit, but by the time we drove out of downtown, the rain had stopped.
Mary took us to a playground in Kitzingen. The sun was out and it was a gorgeous afternoon. The boys played for awhile and we rested in the sun. Next, we headed back to Buchbrunn. We stopped by Gabi and Marcus' house and got to see a little of the inside of it. Marcus was home from work because he hadn't been feeling very well. The house was pretty big and very bright inside. Charley (Gabi and Marc's father) had built the house in the last few years.
After we got home, I walked with the boys down the street to the local playground where they found a zip line - this was easily the favorite part of the day.
Back at the house, we had coffee and cake (Bienenstich again!). This revived us enough to make it until dinnertime. While we were here in Buchbrunn, the boys got to watch a little television. In Auburn, when I put German childrens' videos in, they reject them immediately. But, here there was no choice, they watched lots of things. Here in Buchbrunn, they tried "I Carly", "Drake and Josh" and some other things that they had already seen in English.
Charley came home around 5:00. We talked until Gabi and Marcus came over for dinner. Dinner was a regional Shish-Kebab dish with rice and a salad. The boys really loved it again! The adults stayed up past 11:00 talking about lots of different things. Marcus and Gabi helped with translation whenever I would get stuck.
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