Die Baumriesen von Wessobrunn

The lime tree is often found in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. It is a deliberately planted tree in Bavaria. It often protects chapels, serves as a courthouse tree or provides a piece of home and security as the center of the village. You can marvel at several giant trees in the Wessobrunn area. You can try to decipher the so-called Wessobrunn prayer under the Wessobrunn prayer lime tree, which was probably once the court lime tree of the Wessobrunn monastery. It is one of the oldest German documents, carved into a man-sized boulder. The liberation lime tree right next to it was planted in 1796 to celebrate the abolition of school fees at Wessobrunn Abbey. And in the nearby woodland, hikers will find what is probably the most famous lime tree in Bavaria, the thousand-year-old Tassilo lime tree, with room for around 20 children in its hollow center. A few kilometers to the south, so many lime trees grow that a village was even named after the heart-leaved tree.

Hiking map Pfaffenwinkel, scale 1:40,000, HW-Verlag, nominal fee 1 EUR, available from the Pfaffenwinkel tourist office, www.pfaffen-winkel.de