St. Michael, Romanesque Church Interior

The church of St. Michael in Niederrotweil was first mentioned in 1157 but there is evidence that it goes back into the 8th century. It is situated on a rock with a thick wall around intended as fortification where the people of the village could gather if there was some kind of danger - a true sanctuary in both meanings of the word.

It is the oldest church - built in romanesque style - keeping the oldest organ in the region. It is famous for the frescos (from about 1350) that where uncovered in 1951 and its altar which was carved By master HL (presumable "Hans Loy", in about 1520) who carved the famous altar in the Münster of Breisach, too.

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Europe / Germany

Lat: 48° 5' 6" N
Long: 7° 36' 44" E

Elevation: 190

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Taken 8 images (6 horizontal, 2 zenith) on Fuji Reala with 3 seconds exposure time at f/16 with Zenitar 16mm Fisheye. Scanned with Nikon LS40 and stitched using autopano and PTGui. Postprocessed and nadir patched in Photoshop. Converted to cubic with PanoCubePlus.

I was late with my decision to join this WWP event and had no idea what to shoot until Dec 18. in the morning when I mentioned this to a friend who lives in the Kaiserstuhl (a beautiful region in the sout-west of germany). He did some research and told me where I had to ask for a key - the church is closed normally.

The first information I got from the person who keeps the key was that photography is prohibited in the church. I phoned the priest and asked for a permission, which he gave to me after some discussion.

I hurried to the church (the sun was fading) which is about 25km from where I live but when I reached there the key-keeper rejected: No, the priest didn't phone her. No, she wouldn't phone the priest, no way. She wouldn't even give me the number. I was glad I remembered it - the numbers are very short there...

I phoned the priest again using my mobile but the battery was low so the only thing I could shout was: "Please phone Mrs..." He fortunately understood and phoned her and apparently had a hard time to convince her to let me into the church for my shooting - many thanks to him!

After some time she came out again (I had to wait in the cold) and told me I had 10 minutes, so I hurried to get finished. She didn't allow me a second shoot.