Tom`s travels: Wittstock & Heiligengrabe (19/03/2022)

On another March weekend, we decided to head northwest of Berlin and visit a couple of towns. Our first stop was Wittstock which we reached in just less than two hours. Once there we got off the train and headed on to visit the nice city center. Wittstock in fact features a well-preserved old town with many parts of the original medieval walls still surrounding the city. We first followed the perimeter walls for a short while until we then reached the Alte Bischofsburg, which served as the residence of the Havelberg Prince-bishops from 1271 and was thus known as the old bishop's palace. It consists now of a circular set of medieval walls known as the lower castle, enclosing another small set of circular walls with a 32-meter high keep known as the upper castle. The walls' height was originally 11 meters and today is between 4 to 7 meters high. From the castle, we then headed on through the city stopping by the main church, the Marienkirche, dating back to 1240 in a typical Brick Gothic style. Unfortunately, it was close so we could not visit the interior, so we continued on our walk. We passed by some nice houses and buildings some of which with the nice timber framings. Not far from the church we then reached the central square, the Markt, with the nice Rathaus, or town hall, that looked old but is actually rebuilt in 1905 in brick to look as if it was medieval. Continuing onwards through some side streets we then passed by the structure of another church, the Church of the Holy Spirit, built around the beginning of the 14th century but destroyed by a fire in 1730 and then rebuilt in its present form. Next to it was the Gröpertor, from the 15th century and the only one of the three city gates of the medieval walls that have survived. From there we then decided to have a walk around the whole perimeter of the town following the medieval walls. It was nice to see them well-preserved especially the eastern and southern sections. Once we were done circling the old town we then went one last time through the streets admiring the architecture before eventually heading to the station from where we took a ride to the next town, Heiligengrabe. The ride took only a few minutes and once there we started walking toward the town. The train station was a bit far off in the middle of the countryside so we had to walk for a little while before coming upon the first houses. Once we reached the town we headed on to visit the main monument which we had come there specifically for, the Abbey of Heiligengrabe. The monastery was founded at the end of the 13th century and was originally inhabited by Cistercians nuns but later turned into a Lutheran nunnery after the reformation. The whole complex with its abbey church, the chapel, and the other buildings around is considered the best-preserved monastery complex in the state of Brandenburg. Once there we started the visit to the Heiliggrabkapelle, or Blood Chapel, built in the 16th century in a Brick late Gothic style and with a particularly striking high gable facade. Its interior was remade in neogothic style and it is where once the important relic in the form of a Bleeding Host was kept and which made the monastery grow in importance and become a famous pilgrimage point until the reformation. Behind the chapel was the Abbey proper, which we entered by paying a small fee. Here, in some of the rooms of the cloister, we saw a small nice museum with old artifacts and a detailed history of the nuns and abbesses who inhabited, and still inhabit, the complex. We walked through the arched vaults of the nice cloister and then entered the abbey church, dating to the end of the 13th century in a brick gothic style. The interior was rather plain and whitewashed but featured a nice 15th-century winged altar and an elegant 18th-century organ. After that, we exited the church and small museum and walked around the rest of the complex admiring the other structures and buildings and the nice little cemetery right next to the abbey church which featured some old tombs some of which date to the end of the 19th century. It was then time for us to head back to the train station, after another walk through the countryside, from where we eventually took the next train back to Berlin.