It's Sunday, so I thought I'd share a very special place we found on our recent trip to Germany.
Schwäbisch Hall is about an hour's drive away from. Stuttgart on the Autobahn.
Schwäbisch Hall is about an hour's drive away from. Stuttgart on the Autobahn.
Schwäbisch Hall is an extremely well-preserved former Free Imperial City - an important centre of trade, particularly in salt. Once mighty walls ringed the city and many of the guard towers are left.
Thanks to a rather bleak 19th century & massive conservation efforts in the late 20th century, Scwäbisch Hall seems frozen in the 18th century.
You can find all sorts of strange and wonderful stuff in Schwäbisch Hall - here's the stone pillar in the market place that troublemakers were chained to as punishment as late as the 18th century.
The crown jewel of Schwäbisch Hall is the Michaelskirche, a church in existence since Carolingian times. Today's edifice dates from the 14th and 15th centuries.
The Michaelskirche was the 'home church' of a bloke called Johannes Brenz. You can thank him for the condition of the church.
Brenz was a Protestant reformer & a friend of Martin Luther. When churches across Germany were getting trashed & whitewashed, Brenz insisted that much of his church be saved.
The first sign that there's something special here is the medieval statue of the Archangel Michael, still bearing the paint job it bore in the Middle Ages.
The interior is Gothic and cavernous. When we were there an orchestra was rehearsing. it was pretty damn epic actually!
Here you can see the impressive vaulting, giving the sensation of being in a much larger cathedral. It really gives you a sense of how rich and powerful Schwäbisch Hall was.
Throughout the Michaelskirche, traces of medieval wallpaintings can be found - these often acted as impromptu shrines for those visiting.
As Schwäbisch Hall reached the zenith of its prosperity, rich citizens were able to commission large altars as a demonstration of their faith. The high altar dates from 1460.
Side altars and tombs show some of the finest woodcarving in the church. This detail from the 'Holy Tomb' shows figures carved around 1450.
I particularly like the two wings of the 'Holy Tomb' in the Michaelskirche, dating from the early 16th century. This detail shows soldiers gambling for the garments of Christ.
There are also some magnificent baroque and rococo tombs in the Michaelskirche that speak of Schwäbisch Hall's last great period of prosperity.
There are two really human things in the Michaelskirche that spoke to me.
The first is the charnel house in the crypt, still full of the bones of victims of the Black Death.
The first is the charnel house in the crypt, still full of the bones of victims of the Black Death.
The second is wheat preserved from 1817, the year following 'The Year Without A Summer', when the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia plunged global temperatures, resulting in widespread starvation.
The writing reads, 'In Hopes Of Better Times'.
The writing reads, 'In Hopes Of Better Times'.
Outside the Michaelskirche, there are so many quaint medieval streets to wander in Schwäbisch Hall...
...you'll also want to visit the Johanniterkirche, home of the Würth Collection's treasure house of medieval art. kunst.wuerth.com/en/johanniterk…
If you're going to visit, make sure you have proper accommodation - you can stay in one of the medieval towers! residenz-weilertor.de
So that's Schwäbisch Hall - one of my favourite places in Germany. I hope you enjoyed it & let me know if you have any questions! :)
