Doppelkirche Schwarzrheindorf, Bonn

My lovely host told me that she is a guide to the local church and she'd take me to see it. As she picked up the keys I prepared myself for a bit of a duty visit. How wrong I was...

It was certainly more interesting from the outside than I expected but inside! One moment I was in suburban east Bonn, the next in 12th century Italy, surrounded by what I learnt was one of the most complete sets of Romanesque murals in Germany.

The Doppelkirche (double church) was built as a chapel for the adjacent castle of Earl Arnold von Wied who was provost of Cologne cathedral and Chancellor of Emperor Konrad III. Based on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, inspired by Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel at Aachen Cathedral, and with an upper church for the nobility from which the Emperor on a throne built for his visits could see through an octagonal opening to the altar in the lower church, it does not fit, not remotely, with what I understand a 'chapel' to be.

It's on the 'wrong' side of the Rhine, just down the road from a rather good bakery and a bus stop into town. 

My little borrowed compact does it little justice but, wow! Thanks, Uli!

Then a walk along the Rhine's flood plain and back for the second of our two concerts. Proud to be a part of the sound we made.