Lower Bavaria had a brief moment of glory in the 15th century when it became Southern Germany’s center of the Renaissance. But with its Golden Age quickly over, obscurity has preserved this moment for us. Lower Bavaria is full of beautiful towns and villages, despite war and ravages of industrialization.
Lower Bavaria is the portion of Bavaria that follows the lower part of the Isar River as it merges into the Danube and flows into Austria. Lower Bavaria is focused on the ancient Duchies of Bavaria-Landshut and Bavaria-Straubing, which played important, if not brief, roles in the struggle for Bavarian unification.
By the middle of the 15th century, consolidation had left Bavaria-Landshut as the largest and possibly the strongest of the Bavarian states. Landshut would become the first major Renaissance Capital in Germany, complete with imported Italian Palazzo and Roman sculptures. Spared destruction in the centuries of conflict that followed, Landshut and the surrounding region offer a glimpse into a different age from what you see in Munich and its immediate orbit.
