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Churches & monasteries
Köln
St. Gereon in Cologne is one of the city's twelve great Romanesque churches and one of its most unusual: a basilica with a ten-sided domed hall that grew out of a late Roman oval building. If you have already seen the cathedral and want to…
Churches & monasteries
Weingarten
The Basilica of St. Martin in Weingarten is the largest Baroque church in Germany. Its 67-meter dome, 102-meter length and twin-towered facade make it one of the highlights of the Upper Swabian Baroque Route, and inside you will find a fam…
Churches & monasteries
Augsburg
At the southern end of Maximilianstraße stands Augsburg's most striking monument to its religious history: two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, wall to wall. The larger one, the Basilica of St Ulrich and St Afra, is one of the la…
Churches & monasteries
Bad Staffelstein
The Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (Basilika Vierzehnheiligen) near Bad Staffelstein in Upper Franconia is one of the finest Baroque churches in Germany. Designed by Balthasar Neumann, the architect of the UNESCO-listed Würzburg Res…
Churches & monasteries
Bonn
Bonn Minster is the main church of Bonn, the former West German capital on the Rhine, and one of the city's oldest landmarks. The Romanesque basilica with its 81-meter crossing tower has dominated Münsterplatz for nearly a thousand years.…
Churches & monasteries
Brandenburg an der Havel
Brandenburg Cathedral (Dom St. Peter und Paul) stands on its own island between the Havel River and Beetzsee lake in the city of Brandenburg an der Havel. It is one of the oldest brick cathedrals in northern Germany and the mother church o…
Churches & monasteries
Braunschweig
When Henry the Lion returned from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1173, he had a church built opposite his castle, Dankwarderode, to serve as a burial place for himself and his wife. Brunswick Cathedral, officially the Cathedral of St B…
Churches & monasteries
Bad Doberan
Doberan Minster (Doberaner Münster) in Bad Doberan is one of the finest brick Gothic churches in northern Germany and one of the most important surviving monuments of the Cistercians in Mecklenburg. The vast former abbey church, with its s…
Churches & monasteries
St. Blasien
Coming over the hills from Bernau or Todtmoos into St. Blasien, you do not expect this sight: in a narrow Black Forest valley rises a green dome that looks more like Rome than the high Black Forest. St. Blasien Cathedral, locally called th…
Churches & monasteries
Halberstadt
Few churches in Germany follow the model of the great French cathedrals as consistently as the Cathedral of St. Stephen and St. Sixtus in Halberstadt. It took almost 250 years to build, and because the chapter gave very little away, an eno…
Churches & monasteries
Waldsassen
Holy Trinity Church at Kappl stands at 599 m in a hollow between the Glasberg and Dietzenberg hills near Waldsassen and is one of the most unusual church buildings in Germany. The architect Georg Dientzenhofer translated the Holy Trinity i…
Churches & monasteries
Marburg
St. Elisabeth's Church (Elisabethkirche) in Marburg is considered Germany's oldest purely Gothic hall church, and its two 80-meter towers rise above the old town on the Lahn River. Built from 1235 over the grave of Saint Elisabeth of Thuri…
Churches & monasteries
Erfurt
Erfurt Cathedral (Erfurter Dom, St. Mary's Cathedral) and the neighboring Church of St. Severus rise side by side above Erfurt's vast Domplatz square, forming one of Germany's most striking city skylines. A broad flight of 70 steps leads u…
Churches & monasteries
Beuron
Beuron Archabbey (Erzabtei St. Martin zu Beuron) is a working Benedictine monastery in the scenic Upper Danube Valley in southwestern Germany, set among pale limestone cliffs and forests. Its Baroque abbey church and the richly painted Cha…
Churches & monasteries
Idar-Oberstein
Stroll through the old town of Oberstein, look up, and you will see a small white church that seems glued into an almost vertical rock face. The Felsenkirche (“rock church”) was built more than 500 years ago into a hollow in the castle roc…
Churches & monasteries
Chiemsee
Fraueninsel (Frauenchiemsee) is a tiny, car-free island on Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria, about an hour southeast of Munich, and home to one of the oldest convents in the German-speaking world. Fishermen's cottages, flower gardens and a white B…
Churches & monasteries
Freiberg
A cathedral that was never the seat of a bishop, yet one of the most richly furnished churches in Saxony: the Cathedral of St. Mary on Untermarkt in Freiberg owes its treasures to silver mining. It holds a 13th-century portal with a firm p…
Churches & monasteries
Freiburg im Breisgau
Freiburg Minster (Freiburger Münster) is the landmark of Freiburg im Breisgau and one of the finest Gothic churches in Germany. Built of red sandstone on the edge of the Black Forest, it is crowned by an openwork spire that the Swiss histo…
Churches & monasteries
Fritzlar
Around 723 the missionary Boniface felled a mighty oak near Geismar that was sacred to the Germanic god Donar, and used its wood to build a chapel dedicated to St Peter. The town of Fritzlar grew out of this foundation, and on that spot no…
Churches & monasteries
Fulda
Fulda Cathedral (Fuldaer Dom) is a baroque cathedral in the center of Fulda in Hesse, and the burial place of Saint Boniface, the "Apostle of the Germans". With its two tall west towers, white stucco interior and the crypt where pilgrims h…
Churches & monasteries
Altötting
The Chapel of Grace on Kapellplatz in Altötting is regarded as Bavaria's national shrine and is one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in Germany. Inside stands the Black Madonna, a small carved figure of Mary, and in wall niches around…
Churches & monasteries
Heidelberg
The Church of the Holy Spirit (Heiliggeistkirche) in Heidelberg is the red sandstone Gothic church that anchors the Market Square in the heart of the Old Town. It was the burial church of the Electors Palatine, once housed the legendary Bi…
Churches & monasteries
Hildesheim
Hildesheim Cathedral, the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985 together with nearby St. Michael's Church. It holds bronze masterpieces made around the year 1000, a gilded Romanesque chandeli…
Churches & monasteries
Trier
Trier Cathedral (Trierer Dom) in Trier is considered the oldest cathedral in Germany and one of the most remarkable churches in Europe. Its fortress-like Romanesque walls hide masonry from the age of Emperor Constantine, and its story span…