We had a long weekend due to the All Saints Day holiday on Friday, so on Saturday we borrowed a friend's car and took a ride in the country. The weather was cool and started out cloudy and a bit wet, and the trees on the hillsides were dressed in fall colors of mostly yellow and dull orange, with some green left over. As we drove further west, the sun came out. We drove about an hour and a half west past Bad Windsheim and Rothenburg ob der Tauber until we got to Creglingen.
https://goo.gl/maps/nGoo7oiv6DaKVPBYA
It's a small place on the Romantic Road that runs south from Wuerzburg. Our goal was to spend the day in a quiet little town with some cultural attraction.
We found it just outside of town in a little church built in 1389 called Herrgottskirche (the church of our lord God). Inside is one of the most important works by the late Gothic sculptor Tillman Riemenschneider.
Sometime between 1490 and 1510, Riemenschneider built a wooden altarpiece depicting the assumption of Mary into heaven. It was the first time that the assumption was the main subject in an altarpiece; previously the assumption had been depicted only in illustrations of books. The shrine sits on a stone altar, which sits on the spot where a farmer is said to have found an intact communion host while plowing his field. (An open arch into the stone base of the altar allows a view of the dirt where the host was found.)
The center of the shrine shows Mary being lifted by five angels into heaven. She is surrounded by the twelve apostles. The faces are very expressive, especially St. James the Elder, shown in the front row on the right.
Around the center, the altarpiece shows the seven joys of Mary:
All are masterpieces. Richard especially likes the annunciation, with the archangel Gabriel floating in from the left, and Mary twisting her head away from her book to greet him. And what is that vase doing on the floor?
The superstructure has a depiction of Mary being crowned by two angels, with God the Father and Jesus at her sides.
Along the bottom in the right niche of the predella is the scene of the twelve-year-old Jesus teaching in the temple. The scribe on the right is said to be a self-portrait of Riemenschneider.
There are more treasures in this little church. Richard especially likes the fresco of St. Christopher on the wall in the chancel.
The outside of the Gothic church had some intriguing features. The stone face below is definitely from an earlier era, judging by its primitive style. It could belong to the Romanesque style from the 9th century, when the pagan days were in the not-so-distant past.
In addition to the carved altar piece, the church also had 3 brightly painted altars from the late middle ages (1490-1510).
By the time we found the church (which was not yet open), we had been on the road for more than an hour and a half, our breakfast was about 5 hours in the past, and Kathy was very hungry. Across the road were a thimble museum and a small, homey restaurant that advertised that they welcomed bikers, complete with a small motorcycle mounted on top of the wall around the terrace. When we walked in, a tall, tattooed man in a black T-shirt with brush-cut hair, a couple of earrings and a bluetooth headset in his ear, was the only occupant of the small dining room, but we smelled cigarette smoke. Turns out that behind the door to the back room, designated as a smoking room, the place was full of regulars. He took our order, offering a choice of potato soup with sausage, or a goulash soup, which means a type of spicy beef stew (no macaroni), accompanied by sour dough bread. Two shallow, blue enamel bowls with matching enamel spoons arrived on the table, and the stew came out in a matching covered, enamel pot with a cover and a ladle. Besides the homey, attractive presentation, it hit the spot! This café probably gets some tourist business because of the church, because the woman who brought out the food spoke a bit of English. There were also funny signs in English posted around the walls, along with Bavarian and Wuerttemberg memorabilia.
On the way to Creglingen, we went through the small town of Detwang, https://goo.gl/maps/rYNgWubKcA5dg6ee8, which also claimed to have a Riemenschneider altar. An old water wheel was prominent at the road side. We were following the course of the Tauber river, and countless signs indicated old mills, including oil mills and grain mills.
Detwang's Riemenschneider altar was in a small church, seen below, but visiting hours were only on Sunday after the 10:00 service so we didn't get to see it. The old church itself was surrounded by a wall with a gate tower. Relatively recent gravestones surrounded the church. Remember that grave plots in Germany are reused throughout the centuries, with the bones of past occupants removed and stored somewhere else in ossuaries on sacred ground, while the recently deceased are buried in the plots leased by new families, or even the same family for centuries or decades.
In Creglingen, along the river, this figure was holding court. Kathy is sure that the artist intended her to be a cheerful representation of a harvest goddess. Her breasts were equipped with pipes that would have sprayed water into the basin surrounding her.
https://goo.gl/maps/nGoo7oiv6DaKVPBYA
It's a small place on the Romantic Road that runs south from Wuerzburg. Our goal was to spend the day in a quiet little town with some cultural attraction.
We found it just outside of town in a little church built in 1389 called Herrgottskirche (the church of our lord God). Inside is one of the most important works by the late Gothic sculptor Tillman Riemenschneider.
The center of the shrine shows Mary being lifted by five angels into heaven. She is surrounded by the twelve apostles. The faces are very expressive, especially St. James the Elder, shown in the front row on the right.
Around the center, the altarpiece shows the seven joys of Mary:
- The Visitation, in the upper left panel
- The Annunciation, in the lower left panel
- The Nativity of Jesus, in the upper right panel
- The Presentation at the temple, in the lower right panel
- The Adoration of the Magi, in the lower left predella
- The finding in the temple, in the lower right predella
- The Coronation of the Virgin in superstructure
All are masterpieces. Richard especially likes the annunciation, with the archangel Gabriel floating in from the left, and Mary twisting her head away from her book to greet him. And what is that vase doing on the floor?
The superstructure has a depiction of Mary being crowned by two angels, with God the Father and Jesus at her sides.
Along the bottom in the right niche of the predella is the scene of the twelve-year-old Jesus teaching in the temple. The scribe on the right is said to be a self-portrait of Riemenschneider.
There are more treasures in this little church. Richard especially likes the fresco of St. Christopher on the wall in the chancel.
The outside of the Gothic church had some intriguing features. The stone face below is definitely from an earlier era, judging by its primitive style. It could belong to the Romanesque style from the 9th century, when the pagan days were in the not-so-distant past.
By the time we found the church (which was not yet open), we had been on the road for more than an hour and a half, our breakfast was about 5 hours in the past, and Kathy was very hungry. Across the road were a thimble museum and a small, homey restaurant that advertised that they welcomed bikers, complete with a small motorcycle mounted on top of the wall around the terrace. When we walked in, a tall, tattooed man in a black T-shirt with brush-cut hair, a couple of earrings and a bluetooth headset in his ear, was the only occupant of the small dining room, but we smelled cigarette smoke. Turns out that behind the door to the back room, designated as a smoking room, the place was full of regulars. He took our order, offering a choice of potato soup with sausage, or a goulash soup, which means a type of spicy beef stew (no macaroni), accompanied by sour dough bread. Two shallow, blue enamel bowls with matching enamel spoons arrived on the table, and the stew came out in a matching covered, enamel pot with a cover and a ladle. Besides the homey, attractive presentation, it hit the spot! This café probably gets some tourist business because of the church, because the woman who brought out the food spoke a bit of English. There were also funny signs in English posted around the walls, along with Bavarian and Wuerttemberg memorabilia.
This witty sign was posted inside, next to the door. "He is not drunk who from the floor/ Can rise again and drink some more; / But he is drunk who prostrate lies / And cannot drink and cannot rise"
On the way to Creglingen, we went through the small town of Detwang, https://goo.gl/maps/rYNgWubKcA5dg6ee8, which also claimed to have a Riemenschneider altar. An old water wheel was prominent at the road side. We were following the course of the Tauber river, and countless signs indicated old mills, including oil mills and grain mills.
In Creglingen, along the river, this figure was holding court. Kathy is sure that the artist intended her to be a cheerful representation of a harvest goddess. Her breasts were equipped with pipes that would have sprayed water into the basin surrounding her.
