Hirsau Monastery
This former Benedictine monastery of St. Peter and Paul was the most important reformed monastery north of the Alps during the Cluniac monastic movement of the 11th and 12th centuries. It was destroyed during the Palatine wars of succession by French troops.
The ruins of this architecturally important complex contain relicts from various building styles: the Romanesque columned basilica which was once the largest Romanesque church in southwestern Germany, the Gothic cloister, the late Gothic Chapel of Mary and the ruin of a Renaissance palace. Until 1989 an elm tree grew within the walls of the latter ruin and was the subject of a poem by Ludwig Uhland.