The Benedictine monastery of Weihenstephan was founded in the 8th century and suppressed by the Bavarian state in 1803 during the Napoleonic secularisation. The monastic buildings were not demolished — instead they were repurposed as the Bavarian Agricultural and Brewing School, which eventually grew into the TU Munich campus and university that occupies the hill today. What remains of the original monastery is scattered through the campus: the Baroque church of Weihenstephan, several courtyard facades, and the atmospheric cloister.
The abbey church is usually open and worth stepping into for its Baroque interior, modest by comparison to the cathedral below but pleasant and uncrowded. The surrounding campus landscape — old stone buildings mixed with modern agricultural research facilities — makes for an unusual walk. The combination of monastery ruins, beer, and a working university on a single hill has an absurdity to it that Freising embraces without apology.