Bavaria hotels collection

In the middle of a meadow, the Wieskirche hides behind a plain front an interior of white and gold stucco, beneath a painted sky that opens above the pilgrims. Bavaria likes to paint its walls: in Mittenwald, the façades carry saints in trompe-l'œil, and the violin makers still cut the tops of their instruments from Alpine spruce. In Franconia, Bamberg built its town hall, half Baroque, half timber-framed, in the middle of the river: the bishop, so the story goes, refused the burghers so much as a plot of land. Franconian wine, for its part, comes in a round, flat bottle, the Bocksbeutel, recognisable from across a table.