Museumsfest Museum für Franken

Family Festival in the Heart of the Fortress

The Museumsfest of the Museum für Franken – formerly known as the "Festival of the Mainfränkisches Museum" – is one of the most important family cultural festivals in Würzburg and Lower Franconia. For years, it has taken place on the first Sunday in September at the Marienberg Fortress high above the Lower Franconian metropolis. The fortress hill, with its historic buildings, courtyards, gardens, and galleries, provides an atmospherically unique festival backdrop.

Hands-on Activities Under a Common Theme

Each Museumsfest is dedicated to a specific focus theme – aligned with a current special exhibition or a cultural-historical topic from Franconian history. The hands-on activity stations are the heart of the event: at these stations, children and adults can try things out, craft, research, ask questions, and discover. The educational concept emphasizes active engagement rather than passive learning.

Craft Market and the Middle Ages

In the courtyards of the Marienberg Fortress, craftspeople from medieval trades demonstrate their skills: blacksmiths, potters, basket weavers, glassblowers, wool spinners, dyers, bookbinders. In addition, there are medieval show encampments with costumed re-enactors, sword fighting demonstrations, falconry displays, and music groups with historical instruments.

Concerts and Tours

The program is complemented by live concerts on an open-air stage (regional folk, Renaissance, and classical music), fortress tours for adults and child-friendly special tours, as well as special family offerings from the museum's educational department.

Museum für Franken – Würzburg's Treasury

The Museum für Franken is the state museum for art and cultural history of Franconia, located at the Marienberg Fortress in Würzburg. Würzburg is an independent city with about 127,000 inhabitants in the German state of Bavaria and the capital of the Lower Franconia administrative region. The museum houses one of the most significant collections of Franconian cultural history, including numerous works by Tilman Riemenschneider, the most important woodcarver of the German Late Gothic period.

Marienberg Fortress

The Marienberg Fortress towers over the Main River and the old town of Würzburg. Originally a Celtic hilltop settlement, later a Carolingian St. Mary's Church, and for centuries the residence of the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg, the fortress is one of Bavaria's most important defensive architectural ensembles. Today, besides the Museum für Franken, it also houses the Prince's Palace Museum and is one of Würzburg's tourist landmarks.