Wednesday 20 April 2016

Monastic Island of Reichenau

The Reichenau Island is one of closest German sites from where I live, so it can be a good option for an weekend in a near future. These two postcards were sent by Michèle.

Reichenau Island

Reichenau Island is an island in Lake Constance in southern Germany (...). It lies between Gnadensee and Untersee, two parts of Lake Constance, almost due west of the city of Konstanz. The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway that was completed in 1838. The causeway is intersected between the site of the former castle Schopflen and the eastern end of Reichenau Island by the 10-metre-wide Bruckgraben, a waterway which is spanned by a low road bridge that allows passage of ordinary boats but not of sailboats through its 95-metre course. Its total area is less than 7 square kilometers (3 square miles). The highest elevation on the island, the Hochwart, reaches 438.7 metres, or 43 metres above the lake surface.

Churches of St. George, St. Peter and Paul and St. Mary and Marcus

It was declared a 
World Heritage Site in 2000 because of its monastery, the Abbey of Reichenau. The abbey's Münster is dedicated to the Virgin and Saint Mark. Two further churches were built on the island consecrated to St Georg, and to Sts Peter and Paul. The famous artworks of Reichenau include the Ottonian murals of miracles of Christ in St Georg, unique survivals from the 10th century. The abbey's bailiff was housed in a two-storey stone building that was raised by two more storeys of timber framing
 in the 14th century, one of the oldest timber-frame buildings in south Germany. - in: wikipedia

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