Creglingen, Romantic Road

Set amongst the hills is the pretty little town of Creglingen, home to 4,700 residents. Its main attraction is the 14th-century Church of Our Lord. In 1384, a piece of undamaged communion wafer (bread) was found in a peasant’s field. Believing that the wafer was the cause of miracles, the local Lords built a chapel shortly after. Several altars were ordered for the inside, but the centrepiece is the 36ft (11m) tall altar of the Virgin Mary. Carved out of wood in the early 1500s by the Gothic sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider, the altar is a fine and intricate design of figures made from linden trees, with the altar wings made of pine trees. During the Reformation period, the altar wings were closed rather than destroyed and remained that way for the next 300 years, providing the best form of preservation throughout the centuries.

Any seamstress or sewing enthusiast will appreciate the very useful accessory, the thimble. Its history spans more than 30,000 years, when bones were discovered in Moscow. These bones were used by mammoth hunters to sew beadwork onto leather. Difficult to manufacture, the thimble became a collector’s item for the upper class. In 1982, Creglingen opened the Thimble Museum, housing over 3,000 thimbles from around the world. The collection includes thimbles made of mammoth bone, bronze, brass, porcelain, gold and embroidery, to name a few. Their design could range from plain and utilitarian to jewel-encrusted, with detailed miniature sculptures. Modern-day thimbles come in a wide variety of themes and designs.