LONDON BABY!

Less then 24 hours after arriving home from Germany we were packed up and headed off on our second adventure of the break...to ring in 2012 in LONDON. London is an amazing city and luckily for me I got to share it with one of my girls, who flew all the way in from USA for her first England experience! It was a crazy time to be in the city and it was sooooo busy but well worth it! We managed to fit in all the major sightseeing in two days as well as ring in the New Year in the middle of Westminster Bridge under Big Ben and the London Eye with an estimated 250,000 others. It was definitely the most amazing New Years Eve I've ever had....it'll be hard to top next year.


The first night we were there, Robyn and I decided to take a little stroll. We turned the corner about 3 minutes from where we were staying and were on Westminster bridge beside the London Eye and across the river from Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Needless to say I was so excited I called home from the middle of the bridge. "Hey Mom, you'll never guess where I am right now!"

Weisswurst (white sausage) is traditional to the region we were staying in. The sausages are typically made fresh in the morning then boiled and served in the water with soft pretzels and sweet mustard. They are sooooooo good!!

The garden at Wurzburg

front of the residence

Wurzburg Residence

On our second last day in Germany we went on a tour of the Wurzburg Residence. The residence was a papal residence commissioned by Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn and his brother in 1720 and completed in 1744.
The inside was restored to it's former glory after it was burned out during the bombing in March of 1945 in which 90% of the city was destroyed. Fortunately they had already removed much of the decoration and all of the furniture from the residence so those pieces survived.
In the massive staircase of the residence there is a fresco covering all the walls (which survived the bombing and fires) painted by a Venetian named Giovanni Tiepolo. The fresco depicts the peoples of the four continents on each wall (Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas ---lady America happens to be riding an alligator which I thought was pretty cool).The fresco also happens to be the largest surviving fresco in the world. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside so you'll have to google some images!
We also went on a walk through the gardens afterwards which were massive! They were so nice, I only wish it would have been the spring or summer so we could have viewed them in full bloom!

The footbridge was completed in the 1500s and decorated on both sides with statues of saints in the 1700s.

All the ladies taking a little break on the footbridge on our way to the fortress!