Chorin Abbey

Cistercians began Chorin in 1273 and built in brick because that is what the Brandenburg plain provides, but they used it as though it were cut stone, drawing out a west front of tall thin gables and moulded profiles that has been copied ever since. The community dissolved at the Reformation and the buildings were left to decay for three centuries, until nineteenth century interest in ruins brought a deliberately partial restoration. So the church still stands roofless, the nave open to the sky and the tracery empty, which suits it. Concerts are held in the shell through the summer, and the site sits beside a small lake in mixed forest an hour out of Berlin.

What you actually see

• The west front - the gabled brick facade that set the pattern for north German brick Gothic.
• The roofless nave - walls, tracery and sky, with the floor grassed over.
• The cloister ranges - vaulted rooms and the monks' hall, the roofed part of the site.
• The lake and mill ponds - water the monks rerouted, now a forest walk around the abbey.

When to go

May to September, when the site is fully open and the summer concert series uses the church shell at weekends. Spring brings the surrounding beech woods into leaf and dries the paths. Winter opening is short and the ruin is fully exposed to wind and rain, with almost no covered space. Concert dates sell out early.

Honest expectations

It is a ruin with little furnishing, and interpretation is mostly in German, so a visit can be over in an hour. The walk from Chorin station is pleasant but poorly signposted in places. Rain leaves nowhere to shelter. Concert evenings turn cold enough that regulars bring blankets even in July.

Nearby

The lakes of the Schorfheide forest, the ship lift at Niederfinow, and the meadows of the Oder valley.