The Château de Vézins is a much-altered castle in the commune of Vézins-de-Lévézou. It has been in the possession of the Vézins family for 900 years.
The first fortress was built in 1120 by Vesian de Vézins to command the Lévezou district. Following a disastrous fire in 1642, the only remains of this original castle are the vaulted rooms of the ground floor. The castle was then redeveloped in the Renaissance style.
Modern-day visitors to the horseshoe-shaped château can see the vaulted hall from the Middle Ages and the first floor rooms. Of particular note are the sculpted coats of arms on the chimney places, Aubusson tapestries from the 16th and 17th centuries and a canopied bed.
The castle was awarded the 2000 Prix du Patrimoine 2000 (heritage prize) for the Midi-Pyrénées region. It is one of a group of 23 castles in Aveyron that have joined together to provide a tourist itinerary as the Route des Seigneurs du Rouergue.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.