After the Romantic Road and Ulm our next task was to cut across country to the Black Forest region, the second part of our Geman adventure. The first leg culminated in a scenic drive to Beuron just dipping into the Naturepark Obere Donau, a landscape of lime stone cliffs and pine and beech woods all hugging the banks of the river Danube. Here we stumbled across a lovely peaceful Stellplatze next to the Beuron monastery….
This working Benedictine abbey dominates the valley and the village and is one of the oldest in Germany dating back to 1077….
The monastery church is open to the public throughout the day and visitors can attend the services. We visited at the end of evening Vespers and were treated to the very relaxing and beautiful latin chanting of the monks, the accompanying church organ and a full peel of bells. There was something quite comforting and endearing in witnessing a religious ritual that has been re-enacted by the monks for over a 1000 years….
The lavishly decorated stucco and fresco interior….
Next to the church is the grave yard for the monks, we noticed that the brothers are buried in pairs or threes and the headstones marking each individual is crafted in a manner that visually connects with the adjoining headstone….
Staying in Beuron was a delightful treat and very relaxing (even when the pin drop silence was regularly punctuated by the peel of church bells), however as darkness fell, the heavens opened and we were subjected to a thunderstorm of biblical proportions! The spectacle of sheet and fork lightening and rumbling thunder was enhanced by the natural sound chamber created by the surrounding limestone cliff faces………we quite enjoyed it actually!
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