Kloster Eberbach in Eltville am Rhein, Germany

Kloster Eberbach is one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval Cistercian monasteries, founded in 1136 and renowned for its austere Romanesque architecture and historic wine cellars. Perched on a sun-drenched slope in Eltville am Rhein, Kloster Eberbach stands as a masterpiece of Cistercian architecture, founded in 1136 by twelve monks seeking isolation and spiritual rigor. The abbey is famous for its vast, column-free Romanesque grain barn and its historic wine cellars, which have been producing Rheingau Rieslings for nearly nine centuries, making it a pivotal site in the history of European viticulture.

Its atmospheric stone corridors and vaulted halls became globally recognized as the setting for the 1986 film adaptation of Umberto Eco’s _The Name of the Rose_, starring Sean Connery, which utilized the abbey to depict the grim, intellectual world of a 14th-century Italian monastery. Today, visitors can dine in the former monks’ dining hall at the Klosterschänke, enjoying refined German and Mediterranean cuisine with panoramic views of the cloister garden and surrounding vineyards, all while walking the very stones that echoed with the footsteps of Hollywood’s most celebrated medieval detective. Get more unusual and extraordinary places each week with the Atlas Obscura Places newsletter.

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