Mettlach, Alter Turm

(2 photos)
The Baroque Benediktinerabtei (seen faintly in the left of this photo), in Mettlach, has been the headquarters for what has become the Villeroy and Boch ceramics company, since 1809. Just west of the Abbey is a park with acres of trees, grass, a beautiful lake, and the Alter Turm (the old Tower), an octagonal chapel erected at the very end of the tenth century as a mausoleum for the town's founder, St. Lutwinus, who was bishop of Trier at the turn of the eighth century. Some valuable treasures associated with him can be seen in the Pfarrkirche St. Liutwin, the church on Freiherr-von-Stein-Strasse, just a couple of doors from Emmy’s cousin’s family home, where we spent many days and nights, during our nine visits to Europe.

We have visited both the Abbey and the Alter Turm many, many times. During our last couple of visits in the 1990s, the Alter Turm, the trees, and the grounds surrounding it, were being trimmed and renovated. We only visited Mettlach during a snow storm, one year.

One summer our daughter Linda worked at the Keravision exhibition (Visitor Information Service) in the old Abbey, and Emmy’s cousin Toni was Herr Von Boch’s secretary 20 years ago. Toni lived on the far side of the park, away from the Abbey, so in order to shorten her walk to and from the office each day, Herr Von Boch gave her a key to the park gate. What a beautiful commute — the trees, the lake, the thousand year old Alter Turm, then to her office in the several hundred years old Benedictine Abbey.
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Here's a photo of the Baroque Benediktinerabtei, the Alter Turm is in the trees to the right. (see Tidbit at http://www.travel-tidbits.com/tidbits/002683.shtml)