Norman's Blog: Weltenburg, Bavaria's oldest abbey and oldest brewery

Weltenburg, Bavaria's oldest abbey and oldest continuously operating brewery.

The abbey was founded in 620AD and there are records of the brewery dating from at least 1050. But all the buildings seen toady date from the18th century when the abbey was rebuilt in baroque style.

During the night we had left the Main Danube canal and entered the Danube river and sailed to Regensurg. We had moored on the river right next to an old crane but were just 100 metres from one of the city gates.

But first we boarded coaches to takes us back to Kelheim where the canal joins the Danube. High on the hill above the junction stands Liberation Hall, based on the Pantheon in Rome, built by King Ludwig ! to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 fought by various German states, Prussia, Russia and Sweden against Napoleon forcing hi to escape to Paris and to abdicate and to be imprisoned on the island of Elbe.

Just a little way up the Danube is where King Leopold’s canal joined the Danube but this had been abandoned ages ago. It was 172kms long with 101 locks which made transit time consuming and railways were already being used to transport goods quickly and safely so out competing the canals.

We soon left the rolling countryside behind and were in a gorge with limestone cliffs on both sides towering up to 105 metres above the river.

Some of the rock formations have received names over the years. One is a boulder standing on top of a pinnacle of rock. It is called Napoleon’s Suitcase as he left here in such a hurry and forgot his luggage.

This proved narrow gorge proved difficult to navigate without powerful engines and so a series of 65 metal rings were fixed to the rock so boats could pull themselves upstream by rope against the strong current.

Another view of the gorge.

One of the highest cliffs on the river.

The first view of the abbey.

Part of the walls to protect some market gardens from the full force of the river.

On the corner of the abbey walls are high level marks with the dates of various floods. The last major flood was in 2013 which didn’t reach the bottoms of the windows and the (moveable) flood defences held. One mark from the last century was 30 centimetres above the top of the window so that would have been a devastating flood.