Alpirsbach Monastery

Founded in 1095, the abbey keeps an austere Romanesque church of red sandstone with almost no ornament, in the reform style of Hirsau. After the Reformation it became a Protestant monastery school, and during restoration work items were recovered from beneath the floorboards of the pupils' rooms: notes, exercises, letters, playing cards, shoes and pieces of clothing dropped through the gaps over centuries and preserved, now displayed as an unusually direct record of school life in the 1500s and 1600s. The Alpirsbacher brewery beside the monastery uses water from the same source and runs tours and tastings.

What you actually see

• The floorboard finds - schoolboys' notes, cards and clothing from the 1500s.
• The Romanesque church - a plain red sandstone interior in the Hirsau manner.
• The cloister - late Gothic vaults around the courtyard.
• The brewery - production beside the abbey with tours and tastings.

When to go

April to October; the monastery closes Mondays in some seasons and reduces winter hours. Brewery tours run on set days and should be booked.

Honest expectations

The church interior is deliberately plain. The monastery closes on some days. Brewery tours are limited and separate.

Nearby

Schiltach lies west; Freudenstadt is east.