october '16: l'abbaye de murbach.

our next stop in the afternoon led us to a hidden gem down in a valley of the grand ballon mountain. murbach abbey was once a famous monastery, but nowadays it is a very sleepy and solitary place. which is perfect for me, as i really love all places that are peaceful and bereft of human beings. i loved entering the church, sitting down in the pews and listening to monk chorals while looking at the beautifully coloured glass windows. or entering the little chapel on one of the plateaus nearby, with the ceiling stars and the ethereal depiction of maria and her child. you can somehow understand why people start to believe in god if they see such holy scenes, such aesthetic beauty.

sometimes i'd like to simulate believing in god. sometimes i'd like to retire from all worldly shenanigans and start a life as a nun, leaving behind all societal pretenses and confinements and only dedicating my life to a greater good. ( and then i think of how ridiculous religions and gods are and i back out again of this idea - how can a person who's not believing in anything dare to even thinking such an insolence? ) i guess i just like the idea of being a recluse in the mountains, far off from society, finally one with nature. the only thing keeping me from doing such a thing is the fact that i can't stand myself. and in order to live such a reclusive life you really need to accept who you are and be okay with it. you need to be completely comfortable to sustain a life like that. or maybe that is my completely unrealistic take on this matter. maybe i'm too much of a romantic perfectionist to ever try out something for real just to hold high utopian prospects and ideals.

( can you sense i'm actually not feeling very well today ( basically every day since the beginning of the year )? depression is real, but i still think of it as not severe enough to do anything against it - talk about holding high ideals and prospects - but that's a subject for a different post, if i ever want to address it, that is. like, i'm still functioning too well to accept i'm suffering a real and not made up illness. ). functioning like in still working on things no one is giving a crap about, or going to work everyday, even though it drains you of all life juices. ah, well...

enough of that false philosophical yackety-yak, time to look at pretty pictures.

cat mint sign in the monastery garden.

one of the portal house's windows.

everything started to turn into warm colours.

le mairie - town hall. murbach is the little village surrounding the abbey church. only about 140 people live in this paradise.

first sight of the church. the monastery was laid to waste during the revolution in 1789 and only the transept still stands today and where once was the nave there is now a cemetery. it is still an exceptional building, no matter what.

we encountered a baby kitten. oh my, she was the cutest. my heart keeps melting whenever i'm meeting a cat. why are they such wonderful creatures?

saint pirmin, the founder of the abbey.

the church is one of the oldest romanesque structures world-wide. romanesque architecture is all about massive vaults and clearly defined structures, the inside of those churches are often rather inornate, simplistic even, which creates a lot of room for sculptures & colourful stained glass windows.

what i love most about churches are exactly the stained glass windows i mentioned above. there are so many different styles, some with depictions of religious sceneries, some rather minimal and modern in design, but all of them have one in common: they create the most beautiful light and illuminate dark interiors in a way i would call celestial.

religious triptych.

there was this beautiful sculpture that reminded me of a little embryo.

warm shadows.

wood sculptures were part of the interior, too ( i think there was a contemporary exhibition going on ) and i really like the treatment of the wood's structure here. so soft and curvy. i see a towering body in the right sculpture, a woman who stabilizes herself maybe?

this is a rather modern take on stained glass windows. can you spot the figure?

the organ of the church.

the angel with the scales. probably liked it because the scales are the symbols of my star sign libra. ( which i think completely fails me, ha )

better picture of the church from behind. you can see that it's actually not the whole church and was formerly so much taller than it is now.

the front. i took this photo from a different plateau and now the church feels so much more voluminous than from when we were at the same level down in the valley. i tried to imagine how it must've looked when the nave was still part of the whole ensemble. it truly must've been an enormous sight.

in a tiny little cave i found this jesus figurine. those memorial and devotional caves are pretty cheesy to me, and they always feel so fake. ( they are a legit part of the worship culture, though, so who am i to laugh about it? )

on the plateau where i shot the church picture there was a tiny chapel overlooking the valley. the inside was magnificent. wonderfully painted and decorated.

blessed maria, our lady, please pray for us.

for scale, my mother in the prayer hall.

the chapel from the outside. the weather was glorious and we stayed for a few minutes and sat down on the benches to enjoy the sun a bit.

on the other side of the chapel was a sculpture and a sun dial ( in the background ) - both of which i only took a detail shot of.

then we decided to do a quick hike to reach some castle ruins ( which we couldn't locate unfortunately ). the view down into the valley of little murbach was priceless.

the trees were still coloured in a lush green, which is so strange since it was already early october. i still haven't figured out when autumn actually begins in the vosges mountains. when we visited the region in november once, every tree was already bare of any leaves, but just one month earlier on this visit it still felt like a very cool summer?