The Mathematical Tower at Kremsmuenster

The Benedictine abbey at Kremsmuenster was founded in 777, and in the middle of the eighteenth century it built something unusual beside the cloister: a tower of about fifty metres, finished in 1758, arranged as a museum of creation stacked floor by floor. You climb through minerals, then the collections of animals and man, then physical instruments and astronomical clocks, and come out at an observatory under the roof. The monks began taking daily weather readings here in 1762 and have never stopped, which makes the series one of the longest continuous records anywhere. The tower is shown on guided tours only. The abbey around it holds a library and an arcaded courtyard of fish basins.

What you actually see

• The stacked collections - minerals, then natural history, then instruments, one theme to a floor.
• The observatory - the dome and the old telescopes at the top of the climb.
• The weather series - readings begun in 1762 and continued daily ever since.
• The fish basins - the arcaded courtyard ponds with statues standing over the water.

When to go

Tours of the tower run from spring into autumn, usually on a fixed timetable of one or two a day, and not at all in the coldest months; the abbey church is open more widely. Check times before travelling, since the schedule is short, tours fill, and the tower cannot be visited alone at any time of year.

Honest expectations

There are a great many stairs, narrow and worn, with no lift, and the tour runs well over an hour at a pace set by the guide. Commentary is usually in German only. The cases are old-fashioned, dense and poorly lit, which is part of the appeal but hard work. Photography inside is restricted.

Nearby

Wels and the Traun valley lie to the north, with Linz about forty kilometres away.