August 25, 2015 Magdeburg was one of the most important medieval cities in Europe starting from the 10th century and lasting all the way up to 1631 when it suffered terribly during the 30 years war of 1618-48. Presented to Edith as a wedding gift from her husband’s father, the market town on the Elbe […]
Tag Archives: church
A 1,000 year-old baptismal font in the ancestral church
August 21 There are baptismal fonts and then there is the font in the little church at Kirchtimke, near Steinfeld, Niedersachsen, Germany. While the church is older than most in America, having been built in 1739, the font is truly spectacular. It is Romanesque and dates back at least 1,000 years. That means it was […]
The Little Chapel at Ersheim, Germany
October 8 We love taking our guests to out of the way places where they can experience something truly unique. The historic church at Ersheim on the banks of the Neckar River just outside of Hirschhorn is one of those places. It had been years since we last visited this very old church, first mentioned […]
Oberwaelden – a village with more than 850 years of history
May 12 We are on the trail of ancestors with genealogist Margie Weiler in the area around Goeppingen, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. One of the highlights of Sunday was a visit to the hilltop hamlet of Oberwaelden. The church there, St. Nikolaus (built pre-Reformation in the early 1400s) […]
The Church of St. Margaret in Wahlhausen, Germany
April 29 The little church in the riverside village of Wahlhausen, Thuringen, Germany is a testament to what a lack of heating can do to preserve art. The Church of St. Margaret was built on the bank of the Werra River in 1718 through donations by the local ruling family, the von Hansteins, who […]
St. Gallus Church in Willmandingen, Germany
From a visit on September 16, 2012 The church of St. Gallus in Willmandingen dates back to at least 1220. That’s when scientists determined the paintings in the tiny chapel on the ground floor of the tower were created. Those paintings, depicting scenes from the life of Jesus, were whitewashed over in the 1500s soon […]
Three Nights in Beautiful Bruges
May 30 There are few better ways to begin a European Adventure than three nights in one of the prettiest small cities in Europe. Bruges, or Brugge, or Brugges, or however you want to spell it (there are several variations, all correct) is a fairyland of gorgeous squares, little lanes, canals, carriages led by clopping […]
Alexander Church in Oerlinghausen, Lippe Detmold, Germany
The Alexander Church was built in the 1200s as a Gothic chapel, later enlarged in the 1500s to a large hall church with thick stone pillars supporting the roof. The church is relatively plain inside, in keeping with traditions of the Evangelical Lutheran (Reformed) Churches in this part of Germany. The organ at the rear […]