The Cloister Andechs
On the Holy Mountain
The Cloister Andechs on the Heilige Berg (Holy Mountain) is today a Benedictine priory in Andechs in Bavaria, in the diocese of Augsburg. Since 1850, it has been the commodity of the St. Boniface’s Abbey in Munich. The monastery inn is a magnet for tourists and locals thanks to its cuisine and its beer (Andechser) from the cloister brewery. The castle Andechs, on the site of which the cloister Andechs stands today, was the ancestral seat of the Counts of Andechs, whose ancestral line ended in 1248 with no successor. In the Middle Ages, Andechs claimed to be in possession of the Holy Prepuce.
The cloister church Andechs, designed by Johann Baptist Zimmermann in Rococo style, was an important pilgrimage church, and is still so today. The “Heilige Berg” of Andechs is the oldest and, after Altötting, the second largest place of pilgrimage in Bavaria.
