Andechs

Above the eastern shore of the Ammersee rises the Holy Mountain of Andechs, a Bavarian place of pilgrimage crowned by a monastery. Duke Ernst built its late Gothic church, completed in 1423. Benedictine monks from Tegernsee arrived in 1455, and three years later the house became an abbey. Lightning set the tower alight in 1669, destroying much of the monastery; the church was reroofed and the monks returned two years later. Baroque rebuilding followed in 1712, before secularisation in 1803.