The Wieskirche stands alone in a meadow in the Pfaffenwinkel, the priests' corner of Upper Bavaria, with the Ammergau Alps behind it, and it is the finest rococo church in Germany. From the outside it is almost plain: a long, white building with a modest tower and a red roof, set among fields with a few farmhouses nearby. The surprise is on the inside, where the whole space explodes into light, colour and movement, with a ceiling painted as an open sky, stucco curling like clouds and a pulpit and altars glittering with gold.
The story begins in the 1730s with a wooden figure of the scourged Christ that was said to have shed tears, a miracle that drew pilgrims to a farm in this meadow. A church was soon needed to hold them, and the brothers Dominikus and Johann Baptist Zimmermann, a stuccoist and a painter at the height of their powers, built it in the middle of the eighteenth century. Dominikus is said to have been so fond of the church that he built himself a house beside it and spent his last years there. UNESCO recognised it as a World Heritage site in 1983.
The ride to it is part of the pleasure. This is the end of the Romantic Road in spirit, and the lanes that reach the church run through meadows and small woods, with the Alps rising behind, and the bends are gentle. The surface is good, traffic is moderate, though busy on summer weekends when coaches arrive. The best moments are early morning, when the church is quiet and the light enters low through the windows, or late afternoon.
Steingaden, three kilometres away, is a small village with a Romanesque abbey church, and it has cafes and an inn. For fuel, Peiting, thirteen kilometres away, is the larger place, with stations and supermarkets, and Schongau is nearby. Dress respectfully inside, and keep your voice low, since it is still a place of worship. In winter the roads can be icy and the meadows white, a beautiful but cold season, and in spring the fields are bright with flowers.