2015-05-04 Basilika Birnau, Bodensee, Deutschland

The pilgrimage church of Birnau is a Maria-consecrated baroque church on the north shore of Lake Constance between the villages of Nußdorf and Uhldingen-Mühlhofen in Baden-Württemberg. The church is located in Birnau on the western route of the Upper Swabian baroque street directly on the B 31. It was built from 1746 to 1749 by the Vorarlberg master Peter Thumb for the Reichsabtei Salem. The church was given a rich baroque interior with frescoes by Gottfried Bernhard Göz as well as stuccoes, altars and sculptures by Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer, the most famous of which is honey beetles, a putto with a bee-bus. The church building with its distinctive bell tower is today a priory of the Cistercian abbey Wettingen-Mehrerau. Since 1946 it is also a parish church of the villages of Deisendorf and Nußdorf.