Visitor center

Nature — monastery — culture

Experience 1000 years of history in the museum in the historic Weltenburg rock cellar!

Amphorae from the Neolith­ic Age, the Gams­bart of the Alt­mühltal, the seals of Cos­ma Dami­an Asam, the plas­ter­ers’ tools and pho­to­graph­ic views behind the monastery walls: his­to­ry comes to life in the muse­um in the his­toric Wel­tenburg Felsenkeller, now pre­sent­ed in a new way and with oth­er excit­ing exhibits. Wel­tenburg Abbey is a Bene­dic­tine abbey with a rich past and a mag­nif­i­cent church as the first joint major work of the Asam broth­ers in the midst of a unique nat­ur­al ensem­ble. All of these spe­cial fea­tures can be expe­ri­enced in a col­or­ful pic­ture book with a vari­ety of exhibits and films on the church, monastery and brew­ery on a walk through 1000 years of his­to­ry. The exhi­bi­tion shows fos­sils as wit­ness­es of pre­his­to­ry, when today’s Wel­tenburg Nar­rows was flood­ed by a sub­trop­i­cal sea, tells of the leg­endary found­ing of the monk’s cell on the Danube beach, of decline and new begin­nings in the Mid­dle Ages, of work on the large con­struc­tion site in the 18th cen­tu­ry for the Asamkirche, with which the baroque became Bavar­i­an, but also about why the Bene­dictines live in Wel­tenburg today with con­vinced faith. And she invites you to dis­cov­er why the puri­ty of the water in the Wel­tenburg­er Enge is not just the secret of the tasty monastery drink. Open March to Novem­ber dai­ly from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on request.

Nature and cul­ture meet in Wel­tenburg in an impres­sive way. The monastery, in which sev­en Bene­dictines live today, is locat­ed in the “Wel­tenburg­er Enge” nature reserve, the last wild riv­er sec­tion of the Danube in Bavaria. Here the riv­er has worked its way through the Jura lime­stone for thou­sands of years. Rocky steep slopes rise up on both sides with a com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent ani­mal and plant com­mu­ni­ties that is unique in Europe. The set­tle­ment of the area dates back to the Bronze and Iron Ages. The begin­nings of the monastery in the 7th cen­tu­ry are shroud­ed in leg­end. How­ev­er, the Bene­dic­tine abbey has gained par­tic­u­lar impor­tance as a com­plex from the 18th cen­tu­ry with the monastery church, planned and designed by the Asam broth­ers as a major work of baroque art in Germany.

n the his­tor­i­cal cel­lar of the monastery brew­ery, which was carved out of the nat­ur­al rock and can be seen on an engrav­ing from 1726, an exhi­bi­tion designed by Dr. Maria Bau­mann, to immerse your­self in the past and present. The arc stretch­es from the flint pick to the first ear­ly Chris­t­ian traces and the event­ful cen­turies of the monastery from the Mid­dle Ages to mod­ern times to the cur­rent life and work of the Bene­dictines in Wel­tenburg. It com­mem­o­rates the builder, Abbot Mau­rus Bächel, who began build­ing the church in 1716 with a great deal of dar­ing and lit­tle mon­ey, and the out­stand­ing work of the Asams. But there is also a focus on the great crafts­man­ship that masons, car­pen­ters, stone­ma­sons and many oth­ers have achieved in build­ing the church. Using tools and mod­els, it becomes vis­i­ble how a fres­co and stuc­co sculp­tures are created.

In addi­tion, a sec­tion is of course also ded­i­cat­ed to hop juice: from the dis­cov­ery of “liq­uid bread” by the Sume­ri­ans (around 5000 BC) to the first “beer brew­ing” of the monks around the turn of the mil­len­ni­um to the Puri­ty Law, accord­ing to which the Wel­tenburg monastery beer is brewed.

In the envi­ron­men­tal area you can dis­cov­er, among oth­er things, the Danube ner­ite, which adorns what is prob­a­bly Bavaria’s old­est piece of jew­el­ry at 5000 years old, the feath­er grass, the “Gams­bart” of the Alt­mühltal, and the her­mit, a bee­tle that lives as seclud­ed as a monk in his Hermitage.

Visitor center in the historic rock cellar

pre-registration

Indi­vid­ual guests with­out pri­or reser­va­tion, groups please reg­is­ter (max. 40 seat­ed and 10 standing).

opening hours

1. April 2024 bis 31. Okto­ber 2024
Mon­tag bis Son­ntag von 10:30 Uhr bis 16:30 Uhr

from April 1, 2024 to Octo­ber 31, 2024
mon­day to sun­day 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m
Closed from Novem­ber 1, 2024 until around mid/end of March 2025
sub­ject to short-term changes

Visitor Center Entrance Fees – per person

Selection of films (German and English)

Bene­dic­tine monastery in Wel­tenburg (approx. 25 minutes)
Monastery Brew­ery (14 minutes)
vir­tu­al church tour (19 minutes)

Information and reservation:

• Allow about a 10-minute walk from/to the bus park­ing lot or ship land­ing stage, as it is not pos­si­ble to dri­ve through to the monastery.
• From around May to Sep­tem­ber there is a shut­tle bus from/to the car park. Infor­ma­tion on this is avail­able from the Kloster­schenke on 09441 67570. Here you can also find out the cur­rent fees for the Wel­tenburg vis­i­tor car park.
• The meet­ing point is the vis­i­tor cen­ter, where pay­ment is made in advance in cash or by voucher.
• Book­ings are only valid with a writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion from us. Please give the tour guide a copy of this letter.
• If you arrive late, the full per­for­mance time can­not be guaranteed.
• Can­cel­la­tion fees: can­cel­la­tion up to 8 work­ing days before the appoint­ment free of charge, then EUR 30.00 per group and booking
• In the event of no-show with­out can­cel­la­tion, the last report­ed Num­ber of peo­ple the cal­cu­la­tion basis.
• The num­ber of par­tic­i­pants can be changed free of charge up to 2 work­ing days before the date. This num­ber forms the basis for cal­cu­lat­ing the entrance fees. We release a tour guide.

Further information on planning your journey and visit can be found on the websites of the following providers:

• Guid­ed tour of the brew­ery: www.stadtmaus.de
• Plan­ning of boat trips: www.schifffahrt-kelheim.de
• Vis­it the monastery tav­ern: www.klosterschenke-weltenburg.de
• Fur­ther guid­ed tours: www.kelheim.de/stadtfuehrungen
• Ride on the Lud­wigs­bahn: www.ludwigsbahn-kelheim.de