Abtei Sankt Hildegard

Of course you know I couldn't pass this place up: the abbey of Saint Hildegard von Bingen. She was pretty famous, back in her day and more recently, sometime in the early 2000s. In her lifetime in the early 1100s she was a renowned mystic, writer, and apothecary. She scolded both popes, and the emperors (I'm looking at you, Frederick Barbarossa) who appointed and supported anti-popes. She had her monastery closed down for disobeying her bishop in the matter of burying a young man who had been excommunicated in holy ground because she claimed he had recanted and et cetera... She also wrote music, and that's why she became a thing outside Catholic circles in the late 1990s- early 2000s, when so many people went through that Medieval Chant stage...

Anyway, her abbey is outside Rudesheim. It was dissolved once (that thing with her bishop), and then again by the French when they were secularizing everything to fit their Revolutionary World Order (and needing money for wars). It was rebuilt in 1904, which accounts for its blending of styles. Two of my favorites: Romanesque and Art Nouveau. What could possibly go wrong with that combination?

We rode the train down from Braubach to Rudesheim, and had some lunch before beginning the walk up through the vineyards to the church. Finally, I had Sauerbraten. It was good, about what I thought it would be. Then we walked through the fields. The church is very nice, the photos not as good as I had hoped. I do like the one of St Hildegard telling off Emperor Freddi B, and of course Saint Cunigunde. We missed the feast day by just a day or so, but just as well. We practically had the place to ourselves.Leer más