About 15 minutes from Braunfels is a town called Butzbach. It was on our list of interesting places to visit, so we stopped there on our way home while we still had some sunlight. When we come to an village or town, we always look for the steeples of the old churches and start there.
Here is the protestant St. Mark’s Church of Butzbach.
St. Mark’s Church (Butzbach)
The St. Mark’s Church in Butzbach in the Wetteraukreis in Hesse was built as a basilica in the early 13th century and redesigned into its current form as a three- aisled Gothic hall church between around 1430 and 1520 . The Hessian cultural monument now serves as the parish church of the Protestant Markus parish. The inventory items include a Romanesque baptismal font from the first half of the 13th century and the landgrave’s crypt from 1620–1622. Georg Wagner ‘s organ front from 1614 is the second oldest preserved in Hesse.
After seeing the church, we walked around the old town streets and plaza. More old half-timber buildings, beautiful and colorful. Again, no one was out, nothing was open. Not even restaurants. The city center was small and it didn’t take long to see the old part.
The information we read about Butzbach talked about the “skinny houses” like this one, sandwiched between larger homes.
Shale siding and roofs:
The town center:
This was once a palace with gardens, now it’s owned by a business firm.
I always keep my eyes open for Stumbling Stones, a sad reminder of those who’s lives were taken from the homes we walk in front of.
Our Frankfurt Germany Mission 