Jakobsweg Etappe 1b: Seeshaupt - Bernried

Pilgrims on foot can use a path down the steps on the east side of the church that leads to the Dampfersteg. From there, a footpath runs along the lake to Seeseiten.

The small baroque church in Seeseiten depicts St. James as a pilgrim on the small altar. According to legend, he is depicted in the frescoes as Matamoros, as the wake of the suicide and as a healer of the sick as well as in his martyrdom.

Pilgrims on foot can return to the lake and continue north along the lakeside path to the Bernried monastery. The Augustinian monastery of Bernried was founded in 1120 from a farmstead. Shortly after its foundation, this monastery was already of great importance, as a group of reform-minded people joined this monastic community.

In the investiture dispute, the monastery sided with the Pope. At the beginning of the 14th century, it was granted lower jurisdiction. At the same time, the canons looked after many parishes. During the Thirty Years' War, however, the monastery came under pressure: it lost its livestock, church and buildings. 50 years later, the village and monastery burned down. But it always recovered. But secularization put an end to monastic life in the monastery. In 1949, the Tutzing Missionary Benedictine nuns bought the monastery building and gave it a new lease of life.

The parish church and former collegiate church of St. Martin stands on Romanesque foundations, was extended in Gothic times and rebuilt in the late Baroque period. At the end of the 18th century, it was partly refurnished. There is a Gothic winged altar on the south wall under the gallery: James the Elder is represented in the left wing of the altar of the Holy Family. The former parish church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary next to the monastery is also worth a visit. Here, pilgrims can find St. James on the right side altar and St. James the Elder in the figurative apostoleion of the church on the console.

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