I have always wanted to visit the Lindau island, but we haven't managed to go there yet even though it's not so far from our home. Last Monday, we had a day off, so we took the opportunity and planned to finally drive there. There were many roadworks on the way and some roads were closed, hence we were driving very slowly through some villages when we saw a huge palace complex. We were supposed to be in Lindau already and we still had 1 hours of driving ahead of us which could turn to several hours with all those roadworks, so we changed our plan and stopped there. See you another time Lindau!
Salem monastery and palace is located in the region of Bodensee in Baden-Württemberg. It originally served as a Cistercian abbey, but since 1802 it is the main residence of the Margrave of Baden. Today, his wife Valerie lives there alone as he recently passed away. She is the great-granddaughter of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, also known as Sissy.
There is a huge parking space in front of the complex. We visited it on Monday before school holidays, so it was empty. Lucky us!
The entrance fee to the complex is 11 EUR per person and it includes the guided tour of the palace. It also includes a small booklet with some information about every building in the complex. As the palace is a private property you can only visit it with the tour guide. The tours are mainly in German, but there are a couple of them in English as well. We both understand German very well, so we took the next tour available. We had one hour before our tour started to explore the complex, so let's go as there are too many things to see!
From the ticket office we walked through beautiful gardens to get to the palace complex. The gardens are inspired by baroque formal gardens with trimmed hedges, symmetrically laid out pathways, colorful flower parterres and two labyrinths - one for kids and one for adults. The idea of labyrinth scares me, so I didn't go there. The hedges were very high and I imagined getting lost and panicking, so I stayed outside 🙂
The gardens were not built for visitors to sit down and enjoy as there were only a couple of benches. It was rather a 'pass through experience'. Anyway, it was way too hot to sit down there and we had the entire complex to explore ahead of us.
The first building that we came across was The Lower Gatehouse. It was built at the beginning of the 18th century. Until 2019 it used to serve as a pharmacy for the villagers for almost 200 years.
On the right side of the lower gatehouse is a very similar building and we were surprised to hear that this in fact was used as horse stables! Our tour guide even said that horses at that time had better lives than some people.
The horse stables were built in 1734 for the abbot's carriage and riding horses. You can see that it was a wealthy monastery.
Let's go inside!
It is one of the few baroque stables in Germany that have been preserved in their original form. There are stucco decorations, colorful horse pictures, original wooden horse stalls and baroque sculptures as well.
There are two rooms with total of 28 stalls (14 each), and in addition there are also rooms for the personnel and equipment which are not accessible today.
The stalls were built based on the ideal measurements of the 17th and 18th centuries. I hope that those horses enjoyed all the details and paintings 🙂
Next to the stables is a shoe shop. The palace complex is built as a medieval village, so there are many shops with traditional crafts.
Originally, this building from the 17th century was used as a mill and bakery of the monastery. The river Aach which supported the mill wheels flows under the building. Today, it serves as a local goldsmith where you can buy some beautiful jewelery.
Let's go to The Cathedral now! From outside, it is rather a simple construction as dictated by the rules of the Order of Cistercians, but it's a real gem inside!
It dates back to the 13th century and interestingly it's the only building that was not damaged during the devastating fire in the 17th century. The rest of the complex was almost completely rebuilt after the damage, but the cathedral wasn't touched by the fire.
Some buildings in the palace complex are used as the most renowned boarding school in the German-speaking world. We didn't know that, but after we saw many kids going in and coming out of this building in their uniforms we asked what they were doing there and they confirmed that it was a school. Not too shabby for a boarding school indeed!
Let's go inside of the cathedral!
We were mesmerized when we entered the cathedral. We didn't expect it to be so stunning.
We could walk around freely, but we couldn't enter the Stations of the cross as this needs to be booked as a private tour which we didn't know. It doesn't matter as there was so much available to us anyway.
The interior features different periods from Gothic to Baroque with many decorations, sculptures and paintings.
The organ as we see it today was built in the 18th century, and it was the biggest organ arrangement of its time.
The stone walls of the main space emphasize the Gothic appearance of the cathedral. It was so impressive!
There were not many ceiling decorations, but I found these ones very interesting. They somehow didn't fit in the plain outlook of the walls.
In the back of the cathedral was an exhibition showcasing the actual detail of the cathedral's roof. It's a patchwork built over centuries. On the back side of each tile is written which factory produced them.
We wished we could relax like this guy, but we still had so many things to see and not a lot of time before our palace visit, so we continued our tour..
The Upper Gate was built a bit later than other gates in the complex and today it serves as part of the school. It is also the entrance to the complex for those who work here as we saw a few cars coming through the gate.
Next on our list was The Glassblowing workshop. We thought it was a museum, but it is an actual workshop with items that you can buy. Let's have a look!
When I saw those cute things I knew I had to buy something for our garden. In the end, I decided to get the bee with the flower on the right. It's been one week since we visited Salem, but I haven't managed to place it in the garden yet as it's been raining all the time, but hopefully I will do it this weekend.
And yes, I couldn't leave this cute owl behind either 🙂
Before we continued to the palace, we visited The Fire Brigade Museum and The Historical Smithy and Old Prison.
The fire protection became a major concern for the monks after the devastating fire in 1697, and therefore they established a fire station on their premises. The monastery syringes from that time form the basis of the exposition in the museum today. We could also see the development of the technology up to the 20th century.
I had no idea that some of the machinery looked a bit like train locomotives 🙂 I loved the exposition as the items were so colorful! I must admit I didn't really understand much of the technology even after reading the information, but I still enjoyed the machines.
The smithy shows the tools and equipment of a smithy workshop of the past. From the smithy they could go directly to the adjoining prison rooms. The Salem monastery had a blood jurisdiction in the region which required a prison. I found it strange to have a prison in monastery, but apparently it was like this in the past.
We thought we were finished with the complex, so we walked towards the palace for our tour when we saw these 3 buildings with a fountain in the middle. We only had about 10 minutes before our tour, so instead of waiting we went there.
It was the praying room which used to serve as the dining room of the monks. In the 19th century, it also served as a chapel for the reformed church in Salem.
Dining was a ceremony itself with many rules, one of which was stillness. At the beginning of the meal one monk stood up and read a part from the bible. Normally, they had two meals every day, but they were only allowed to eat once during the fasting time.
Their meals were made out of basic ingredients, but look at that room! It's a great contrast to what they ate!
And we are right on time for our tour of the palace!
We gathered in front of the palace and waited for our tour guide. It was the last tour of the day and we were less than 10 people.
When we were at the mill I wondered how it was done with the river Aach that flows under the building. Here we could see the tunnel (on the left) that is built under the complex.
Our tour guide was right on time and we were ready to go to the palace. We followed her up the stairs to the first floor while she was telling us about the history of the monastery.
As I mentioned in the beginning, the monastery is owned by the margrave of Baden since 1802. However, the maintenance of such a huge complex is very expensive, and therefore he sold part of the complex to Baden-Württemberg. Today, the palace and the gardens are owned by his wife, and the rest of the complex is owned by the region, and this is also the reason why there is the boarding school in the complex.
Let's check the views from the palace first...
On the left, there are the private chambers of the margravine. The flag is up when she is present in the palace. Well, we didn't meet her (but she was there).
The palace halls looked plain, so we were shocked when the tour guide opened the first door. We entered The Library with books about the Bodensee region. Our guide told us that if students write thesis about the region they are allowed to go to the library and use the books for their studies.
There were many cabinets full with books and a balcony around the room with even more cabinets.
The ceiling was richly decorated with stuccos and paintings.
It was the first room that we saw and it was stunning, so we were excited to see what will come next!
The library is on the left side and when we left the room our guide stopped and told us to look at the decoration of both doors. What did we see? The door on the left has studious people carrying the books and the door on the right had demonic figures supporting the pillars. What does that mean? Well, behind the door on the right were erotic books that only the abbot could access 🙂 He was the only person with the key.
Let's go one floor up to the chambers of the abbot...
We started in the waiting room where visitors waited for the abbot to accept them.
The walls are covered with painted leather wallpaper. Honestly, this information I didn't need to know 🙂
Then we continued to his workplace where he took his visitors. Most of the furniture pieces are original from that time, also with original decorations. I didn't expect to see so many flowers, wall decorations and colors in a former monastery. But it looks like the abbot enjoyed showing off his wealth.
Important people didn't have to wait in the waiting room, but entered directly through this door.
From the chambers of the abbot we continued through this door. Where do you think it will take us?
It took us to the most impressive room of the palace and frankly, one of the most interesting rooms that I have ever seen, to The Imperial Hall.
The hall was the representative room of the monastery. It was used for concerts, banquettes, and other events.
The stucco decoration and oil paintings were added to the hall after the fire between 1705 and 1714.
It clearly shows the position of the monastery and its wealth. It was a free imperial monastery, subordinated only to the emperor and the pope.
The abbot became careful after the fire and the infrastructure of the palace was adjusted. This tiny door was used to heat the rooms. The oven was in the room, but it was heated up and cleaned from the hall. The reason is that the rooms have wooden floors while the halls have stone floors, so they couldn't start the fire.
Our tour guide was in hurry as she needed to close all the rooms, so she brought us back down and we said our goodbyes.
We spent about 3 hours in the complex, but we could spend there all day. No complains though as it was a coincidence that we even came there, but next time we will come for the whole day and we will bring some food with us as there is no restaurant in the complex.
I was so hungry, so we hurried up to the lake to get something to eat...
I hope you have enjoyed another trip with us.
Thank you for reading!
Cheers,
Martina
