The sky over Mammendorf

The hike starts northwards and leads to Nannhofen. The graceful Catholic church of St Peter and Paul can already be seen from the path. But before that, look to the right, where Nannhofen Castle stands, which was built around the same time as the church. The baroque castle was remodelled in the neoclassical style and is now privately owned.

Nannhofen is one of the oldest villages in the region and was first mentioned in a document in 824. There was once a castle here and later a moated castle. Accordingly, there was also an ecclesiastical predecessor to today's Church of St Peter and Paul.
The church and castle were badly devastated during the Thirty Years' War.
A new church building was completed in 1678 in the Baroque style and dedicated to St Peter and St Paul the Apostles. The church was given an organ in 1846. Inside, the high altar, pulpit and ceiling stucco in particular bear witness to the former Baroque design.

The route continues past the small plague chapel and the solar power plant. The plague chapel is a reminder of the plague epidemic of 1650, which killed almost all the inhabitants at the time.
The path leads along the Maisach for a while and finally to a gravel extraction area. At Pfaffenhofen you can already see the tower of the St. Maria branch church from afar.

In the Jesenwang district of Bergkirchen, the church of St Maria stands on a hill, visible from afar. It was built around 1400 on the foundations of a previous sacred building.
Three hundred years later, the Gothic church was supplemented with Baroque style elements, i.e. the windows were enlarged and the wooden ceiling was replaced with a whitewashed ceiling. The tower was given the typical baroque onion dome. Inside, the Gothic architecture remained dominant. After secularisation in 1802, the church became private property.
In 1956, it was extensively restored and Gothic frescoes were discovered and uncovered.
The church was once a place of pilgrimage, as indicated by some of the votive images in the interior.
The high altar dates from the 18th century and the altarpiece was created by the Augsburg painter Johann Rieger.

The historic Roman road leads eastwards out of Jesenwang and directly to a special place of worship that is regularly visited by horse owners.

Directly on the old Roman road between Salzburg and Augsburg, a predecessor of today's pilgrimage church already stood at the beginning of the 15th century. Its foundations can still be found under the church of St Willibald. It was built in 1478.
The honouring of St. Willibald presumably goes back to the predecessor church and was adopted for the new church.
Willibald of Eichstätt was an Anglo-Saxon missionary travelling in what is now Germany in the 8th century. He founded a monastery in Eichstätt.

St Willibald is also considered the patron saint of animals. Hoping for a miracle, farmers from the region rode their horses to the church to have them blessed on the occasion of a horse epidemic. It is said that not a single horse fell ill with the disease afterwards. Since then, a procession with horses and horse-drawn carriages has been held every year in March. The horses are also ridden through the church for the blessing, which is why the church has two entrances on opposite sides.

The route continues along shady forest paths to the Mammendorf leisure park.

Relaxation and active recreation are guaranteed here. The Mammendorf leisure park offers an outdoor pool with 50 metre lanes, a natural swimming lake, huge slides, multi-purpose pool with air bubble effect and current channel, table tennis and beach volleyball facilities. Playgrounds and campsite. Everything is very natural, well-kept and friendly. A kiosk provides guests with food and drink.

From the outdoor pool, the route now leads back through Mammendorf to the S-Bahn station. If you get hungry, we recommend stopping off at the Paparazzi restaurant at Oskar-von-Miller-Straße 2.