Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: Franken

Schloss Weißenstein (Castle Weissenstein) looks for me more like a palace. This palatial residence is a masterwork of Franconian baroque architecture. It is considered being one of Germany’s most beautiful baroque buildings. In 1710, Lothar Franz von Schönborn, Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and Archbishop of Mainz, inherited the estate after a local family had died out. He ordered the construction of a palace as a private summer residence. He employed some of the best known architects of that time to construct a building of European importance. The palace was built between 1711 and 1719 from local sandstone material. During the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763) the palace was attacked and damaged by Prussian troops. Minor restoration work was done in the late 19th century. More recently, preservation work has been done in 1975 to 2003. After the death of Lothar Franz in 1729, the palace passed to his nephew Friedrich Karl von Schönborn who had the park expanded. In the early 19th century, the park was converted into an English landscape garden. Weissenstein is still the property of the Schönborn family. Weissenstein Palace has a fully fully furnished interior and a splendid staircase. It has the largest private baroque art collection in Germany with more than 600 pictures, including work of Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Dürer, Titian, Rembrandt and Anthony van Dyck. The castle can only be visited within a guided tour.

The Bamberg Cathedral - officially the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. George ( Bamberger Dom St. Peter und St. Georg - is a late Romanesque building. The church founded in 1002 by emperor Heinrich II and dedicated on May 6, 1012, the birthday of the emperor. Two fires in 1081 and 1185 destroyed huge parts of the original building. The entire northern part was rebuilt; the church became its present late-Romanesque form in the 13th century. The cathedral is about 94 meters long, 28 meters broad and 26 meters high. The four towers are each about 81 meters high. Personally I found the interior quite sober, although it has a couple of treasures. One of the highlights is the tomb of Heinrich II and his wife Kunigunde (PiP1). Another treasure is the Bamberger Reiter (Bamberg Horseman); an equestrian statue full of mysteries (PiP2). No one knows who the figure is, although it is said that he is Stephan I of Hungary, who was said to have ridden to the cathedral to be christened Pope Clemens II is buried in the Bamberg Cathedral. He was the local bishop before he became pope in 1046, but he died in 1047. Bamberg Cathedral is the site of the only papal burial outside of Italy and France. The dedication of the cathedral was also the foundation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bamberg. The cathedral has been the seat of the Bamberg Archbishop ever since - by now for more than a thousand years! (The main picture shows the so called Princes’ Portal ( Fürstenportal ), located in the centre of the north wall. It is used only on holy days. )

The (former) Cistercian abbey in Ebrach was founded in the year of 1127 by a nobleman Berno and was the oldest and most important of its kind in Franconia. The abbey was settled by twelve monks from Morimond Abbey in Burgundy. The first church was dedicated in 1134. Throughout the centuries the monastery has endured wars, fires and looting. In the Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648) it lost its precious church treasure, which was captured by the Swedes. It was not until the 17th century that the economy improved. The abbey was dissolved during the secularisation in 1803 and the properties were transferred to Bavaria. The abbey church became the local parish church of Ebrach. The construction of the present abbey church started in 1200, after which the consecration took place in 1285. The church unites many architectural styles: the building is early Gothic in style, the interior is mainly in baroque style with elements in rococo -, renaissance - and classicist style. Particularly striking is the colour scheme in yellow and white - the Catholic colours - mixed with light pink. Columns in marble style, ornaments, reliefs and figures in white, the beautiful play of light and the large rose window (see: www.ipernity.com/doc/cammino/47482756 ) give the church a special look.

Veitshöchheim Palace (Schloss Veitshöchheim) is located in the town, nearby the river Main and a couple of kilometers from Würzburg. It was built as a summer palace - originally used as a hunting lodge - for the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg between 1680 and 1682. It was enlarged to its present appearance in 1753 by famous German architect Balthasar Neumann. The palace is surrounded by one of the most beautiful rococo gardens in Germany. The garden - as it can be seen nowadays - dates back to the second half of the 18thcentury, when Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim was Prins-Bishop. The gardens - 270 x 475 meters - offer lakes and waterworks (PiP3) and about 200 hundred sandstone sculptures (PiP4) of gods, animals and allegorical figures. Around the palace is a beautiful flower garden created; on the north side it has also a kitchen garden (PiP5) with herbs and vegetables. In the1950s and 60s the gardens were restored in its rococo form of 1779.