Germany Guide
Schleswig-Holstein
Heiligen-Geist-Hospital
Address: Grosser Burgstr.
Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–5pm, till 4pm winter
Price: Free
The Heiligen-Geist-Hospital is Germany's oldest hospital (c.1260) and a pensioners' home. Its interior features superb frescoes: a fourteenth-century Christ in the Mandorla on the north wall with portraits of the hospice's patrons girdling the Son like an inner circle and an early fifteenth-century rood screen of the life of St Elizabeth. At the back is the Langes Haus men's ward where pensioners lived in tiny huts until 1970, though they didn't enjoy a daily prescription of three litres of home-brew like their counterparts did until 1775.