Wilsnack Health Resort and Plattenburg Castle

Mudpacks and medicinal baths helped Bad Wilsnack (health resort) acquire fame and a good reputation. During the 14th century, three blood-stained communion wafers, which the bishop found while tidying up, made the town one of the most significant places of pilgrimage in Central Europe. Even today, one feels quite reverent when entering the monumental St. Nikolai Pilgrimage Church, which is also called the church of miraculous blood.

Today, the little town in the Prignitz area with its old half-timbered houses, primarily draws the attention of visitors’ as a Mecca for cures and wellness. No wish for recuperation, relaxation and recovery remains unfulfilled in the newly built thermal swimming baths of the town. Anyone who wishes to move his relaxed legs should just go for a bicycle ride through the Elbe-Brandenburg River Landscape Biosphere Reserve.

Plattenburg, the oldest moated castle still preserved in Northern Germany, is nearby. The complex is surrounded by ramparts and double moats and from 1319 to 1548 it served the bishops of Havelberg (a town) as a summer residence. Particularly worth seeing are the brewery and baking house, the chapel from the 18th century and the massive red brick tower in the new Gothic style. The fireplace in the knights’ hall of the castle is an unusual piece of art and the local backdrop for the concerts that regularly take place at the weekends. The ancestral hall and the chapel bear witness  to the past and convey an authentic impression of this period. There are invitations to a medieval spectacle at Plattenburg every year in the summer. Also, the castle provides just the right ambience for the most beautiful day in one’s life, the wedding day.