"Steingaden's past and present - still combined :)" Steingaden Favorite Tip by Trekki

Favorite thing: Although a great many part of the buildings of the former Premonstratensian monastery is no longer there, the remaining ones still form a homogeneous picture of the town. These buildings have been lovingly kept in shape and house all different businesses by now, restaurants, bakeries, pharmacies and private homes. The locals are very proud of their past and have formed a civic foundation in 1998, which takes care about the historic heritage and its transfer into daily life. With no means this leads to a backward effect, quite contrary: the past is being preserved and combined with the future. The foundation has started already in 1997, when they have planned and enacted a historical open air performance called Welf’s Erbe, Welf’s heritage, which was a great success. In 2011, they have enacted their second play, Das Wunder Wies, The Miracle of Wies (church) and will most likely continue with these open air performances. This is similar like in nearby Oberammergau: all actors of these performances are amateurs, locals from Steingaden.

In addition to the performances the foundation has published a very good brochure with guided walks through the historic Steingaden, emphasis of course to the former monastery buildings. It is called “Auf klösterlichen Pfaden”, costs 2 Euro, and is available inside the church (the fee has to be put into the collection box). At the moment this brochure is available only in German and I hope that they will also publish it in English one day.
Update December 2011: I just found this leaflet for download, although also in German only. Nevertheless, it has the map and numbers of the single houses as well as photos of these for easy identification.

© Ingrid D., October 2011.