Stift Kremsmünster

You're standing at Kremsmünster Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Upper Austria. Just take in the size of it. From the mid-seventeenth century the complex grew so large that only Melk is bigger in all of Austria. The architect Jakob Prandtauer, who also designed Melk, worked here, and much of the old building material was simply reused. The south wing runs for about 290 metres. Follow it east and you'll spot the Mathematical Tower, about fifty metres tall. It's an observatory. Abbot Alexander Fixlmillner had it built in the eighteenth century, and his nephew Placidus became the first astronomer to calculate the orbit of Uranus.