Next stop - Maria Laach

Maria Laach Abbey is a Benedictine abbey situated on the southwestern shore of the "Laacher See" (lake), near Andernach, in the Eifel region of the Rhineland-Palatinate.

Founded in 1093 as a priory of Affligem Abbey, in today's Belgium by Count Palatine of the Rhine, Heinrich II von Laach, and his wife Adelheid von Orlamünde-Weimar, widow of Hermann II of Lotharingia, Maria Laach became an independent house in 1127, under its first abbot, Gilbert.