Maulbronn Monastery, Kloster Maulbronn in German, is the best-preserved medieval Cistercian monastery in Europe. It is a World Heritage Site. Happening to get there so soon after my visit to the Cistercian monastery in Cadouin in the south of France is a wonderful coincidence, and I will explain how it happened in a future post (thank you Dieter and Gerhard!).

Maulbronn Monastery was founded in 1147, the first example of Gothic architecture in Germany. The ceiling of the church partially shown in this photo is presumably from a somewhat later period of construction.