Altötting is one of Germany's great Catholic pilgrimage towns, small in size but heavy with devotion. Everything turns around the Kapellplatz, a broad square ringed by churches, arcades, votive chapels, and shops selling candles and rosaries. The focus is the Chapel of Grace, a tiny octagonal shrine that holds a Black Madonna venerated here since the late Middle Ages.
The town works best as a quiet half-day stop in southeastern Bavaria, especially if you are already visiting Marktl am Inn or Burghausen. The religious atmosphere is sincere rather than ornamental: pilgrims still circle the chapel, the votive tablets are moving, and the surrounding churches give the square a density that is unusual for such a small town.
Altötting is not a place for nightlife or grand urban wandering. Come for the chapel, the churches, and the particular Bavarian mixture of Baroque display and private prayer.