Life on the Vine

For a Sunday afternoon excursion Tom and I went exploring. Tom had an itch to go out and do something and pulled up Google Earth. He located our house and then just started looking at photos of places near us. He found a former monastery - the Kloster Bebenhausen - just about 30 minutes away from us. Bebenhausen is located on a highway that runs from the Alps to the Rhine valley. The surrounding forest is referred to as a great medieval empire forest. The monastery was founded in 1183 and construction started shortly thereafter. It served as a Cistercian monastery. The Order of the Cistercians is a Catholic religious order of enclosed monks and nuns. Bebenhausen was monks only. They are sometimes called the White Monks, because of the white habit they often wear. The emphasis of Cistercian life is on manual labor and self-sufficiency. This monastery managed a glass factory. After the Reformation there was an almost even split between the monks supporting Luther and those