Wieskirche, Germany

Chris' parents, Tom & Margi, and his brother Nick (whom he hasn't seen in over 5 years! So this was his first time ever meeting Jane!) came to visit so as soon as they rested up for a day we hit the road - first stop: the Wieskirche.

It was a lovely three hour drive down through sunny Bavaria to the church. I love all the flower boxes in windows all over. I think I may have mentioned that once or twice before... :)

We parked in the nearby lot and made our way through the small town.

So Bavarian in the best possible way.

Follow the yellow brick gray cement road!

Cool and also simultaneously creepy haystack things.

After admiring the countryside we arrived at the end of the path at the Wieskirche - Germany's greatest Rococo-style church. This recently restored "Church in the Meadow" looks as brilliant as the day it floated down from heaven. Overripe with decoration but bright and bursting with beauty, this church is a divine droplet, a curly curlicue, the final flowering of the Baroque movement.

Wow. Jaw. On. Floor.

High on the ceiling is the resurrected Christ before the Last Judgment. This is the most positive depiction of the Last Judgment around. Jesus rides a rainbow, a symbol of forgiveness, giving any sinner the feeling that there is still hope and time to repent with plenty of mercy on hand. 

The church is a pilgrimage church built around a much-venerated statue of a scourged Christ which supposedly wept in 1738. The carving, which was deemed too graphic for the local church, was the focus of worship in a peasant's barn. Miraculously, it shed tears, empathizing with all those who suffer. Pilgrims came from all around and a tiny chapel was built to house the statue in 1739.

Bigger and bigger crowds came so two of Bavaria's top Rococo architects, the Zimmerman brothers, were commissioned to build the Wieskirche that stands today.

Incredible.

Cases flank the doorways above the side aisles and hold handkerchiefs and other items that people left after they were healed and no longer needed them.

The Evans Family in the Wieskirche, Bavaria, Germany on Tuesday June 28th 2016. 

Then we drove down to Füssen!