Pfarrkirche St. Peter und Paul
At the far end of Mittenwald's Obermarkt, the tower of St. Peter und Paul announces itself before you reach it — not just by height, but by colour. Matthäus Günther's illusionistic frescoes wrap the tower's upper stages in painted stone frames, Peter and Paul frozen mid-gesture in a triumphal arch that exists only in pigment.
Step inside and the ceiling opens up into Günther's full programme: angels working stringed instruments overhead — lutes, violas da gamba, violins — a nod to the town's other obsession. Look closely at the back of the high altar and you'll find Matthias Klotz's name scratched into the wood by the violin maker himself.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to time a visit for the Monday afternoon church tour, when the interior gets explained rather than just admired. The organ — 29 registers, mechanical action, built by Bernhardt Edskes in 1999 — occasionally sounds during rehearsals, and the acoustics in the hall church are worth catching.
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Book directly at the providerHow Pfarrkirche St. Peter und Paul came to be
A church on this site was recorded as early as 1315, though what stands today is an 18th-century reinvention. Between 1738 and 1740, master builder Joseph Schmuzer raised the current structure — a late Baroque hall church with a recessed choir that preserves the proportions of an earlier Gothic predecessor. The tower followed in 1746, and the whole was consecrated on 23 June 1749.
The interior decoration came from Augsburg fresco painter Matthäus Günther, whose 1742 altar painting depicts the church's twin patrons and whose ceiling programme unfolds across choir and nave. The building has been under monument protection — Denkmalschutz — ever since, and the Jakobsweg pilgrimage route still passes directly by its door.
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Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.