The town square

The biggest church in Burghausen is hard to miss – its imposing 79-metre-high tower with double Baroque onion domes can be seen for miles around – like a  finger pointing to the heavens, whose tip is on a level with the castle.

Built in 1140 in Romanesque style, the church now boasts an attractive neo-Gothic interior. Among the most precious testaments to the past are the ornate  gravestones that have adorned the inside and the outer walls of the church for centuries.

With its magnificent facade, the early Baroque pilaster church of St Joseph is in a central location on the town square.

The former Jesuit church of St Joseph was built between 1630 and 1631 by the Munich electoral court's master builder, Isaak Pader, and formally opened on 9 November 1631. It was reconsecrated in 1874 after a fire in 1863.

St Joseph's church in Burghausen was closely modelled on St Michael's in Munich, whose construction was a big influence on church architecture in the 17th century. Even though the overall dimensions are smaller and the decorative figures more modest, the church is closer to the Munich style than most.

With features such as its figure of the Jesuit saint and town patron Francis Xavier and the beautiful carved main door from 1781, the early Baroque facade itself is well worth seeing.

Unfortunately, little of the original interior survives, but the high altar (around 1730) from the "Jesuitenaula" (ancient assembly hall of the Jesuits) of the Kurfürst Maximilian School is well worth a visit – along with the architectural treasure of the church with its vaults, arched recesses and pilasters.