There are many reasons to go to Weltenburg Abbey in Bavaria. One is the beer, brewed on the monastery grounds for centuries. Another is the church with its magnificent baroque interior. A third is the peace and quiet that goes hand in hand with monastery life. And the fourth is if you’re considering becoming a Benedictine monk — there’s a chapter on the abbey’s website that will help you achieve that ambition, but the criteria are pretty strict and women are excluded. Founded in 617 by wandering monks from Luxeuil monastery in what is now Burgundy in France, Weltenburg is the oldest monastery in Bavaria. It has survived everything from financial mismanagement to marauding Hungarians in the 10th century, illness brought into the enclosed religious community by Austrian soldiers who were billeted there in the 1700s during the Austrian war of succession, secularization in the 19th century, and a couple of world wars.