Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Churches in Munich

As you walk along Munich's pedestrian street from the station you come to a building site covered with scaffolding . You don't see the facade and only when you come from the other direction do you you realise the sheeting over the scaffolding has a photograph of the building printed on it and is quite impressive.
Sheeting with printed image of St Michael's Church
I could see the glimmer of gold in the gaps between the scaffolding so I walked in underneath and discovered a very impressive and ornate church. This is Munich's St Michael's church.

St Michaels Church in Munich

I had been making my way to Munich's Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) and once I had seen St Michael's I thought the Frauenkirche might be similar but bigger.

The Frauenkirche is just off the pedestrian street: it is a tall church and you see it peeping out above other buildings as you walk  towards it. One tower is currently being renovated (there seems to be lots of building work in Munich at the moment.)

Frauenkirche in the background
You turn into the small street towards the church and find that it is too tall to fit in a photograph.
Side street leads to Frauenkirche

A large carved wooden door leads into the church and inside there is a foot impression in the marble floor. If you put your foot there you can look down the church and not see a single side window. When the church was built the end window was obscured by a statue and it is said that the devil came to see the church as it was being built; he stood there and looked, didn't see a single window and thought that the church would be a failure with no light.

Inside the Frauenkirche
It is completely different to the Church of St Michael and much less ornamented. The overwhelming impression in the church is height. The arches soar high above and are equally as difficult to photograph inside as they are outside.


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