Mark Knopfler in Wurzburg

Our Saturday began with the thought of walking into town for the farmer's market. But that was soon shot down as the clouds opened up. OK, this will pass, so we got in the car and drove about 90 minutes to the beautiful old city of Wurzburg. It helped that one of our favorite musicians was playing there in an outdoor venue that evening: Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits, album with Emmy Lou Harris, etc). We didn't have tickets in advance but thought we could take our chances and worst case, visit the city and its castle. We drove directly to the castle through constant rain but it let up when we got there. And as it turned out, the concert was there on the grounds overlooking the city.
While we were trying to find out where we could buy tickets, a young german girl heard our conversation and asked if we needed 2 tickets. It was serendipity so we bought the tix and went on a tour of the castle and it's museum.


When they opened the gates, we walked down to the venue which was a stage at the bottom of a sloping hill just below the ramparts of the castle. Of course, there were wine and beer stands, big pretzels, brats. We were festivarians yet again! We chose an Indian curried wrap large enough to feed everyone. About 2 hours before the concert was to begin, the looming rain started coming down. It began to look like a german version of Woodstock with rain ponchos and umbrellas everywhere. Pete wedged our umbrella between 2 wine stands so we could stay dry and still hold a glass of wine.
After about an hour, the rain let up and the skies turned blue and pink. (unfortunately, they wouldn't let me in with my camera, so my pics are limited)

At precisely 8pm, Mark Knopfler's band came out and started up. Apparently, concerts need to shut down at 10pm sharp in town. So, it was exactly a 2 hour set. Not just the trains run on time here, even concerts do. By this time, over 8000 people were standing on the hill in preparation. Mary made friends with a young man who was there with his dad. The crowd was a nice mix of people but mostly skewed to our age group. Another guy next to us was a huge, burly German biker there with friends. During Knopfler's signature song, "Brothers in Arms," this big man just started weeping while a girlfriend hugged him. We would have loved to know that story.

After many unprompted sing-alongs, the concert ended (on time) and the crowd walked down the hill to, what else, but a festival going on in the city below. Since I was driving back home that evening, we decided not to visit the festival and headed back to Wiesbaden. The autobahn was now dry and mostly empty, so I got a chance to open up to 200km/h (about 125 mph) for a short distance. Of course, I was passed!

It was a really good day. And we were able to achieve one of our goals - to experience and outdoor concert in Europe by one of our favorite musicians. At a castle no less. Priceless.