Built by the Arabs about 400 meters high on the rock of Monte Tauro, the Castello Saraceno allowed to dominate on Taormina and its beautiful bay, and control the valley of the river Alcantara. The area of Monte Tauro coincided, in greek-Roman times, with the seat of the ancient acropolis less Taormina, Tauromenium. Castelmola represents the upper. It is likely that Muslims have used the fortress to defend themselves from the siege of the Normans of 1079. On that occasion the Count Roger, building a series of wooden towers all around the fortress, isolated himself in fact Muslims barricaded there, cutting them every type of supply. The only months hard resistance. Saraceno Castle of Taormina was during the reign of Frederick II, delivered to a noble castle. Today it is possible to appreciate the external walls of the building. Internal ones, however, were destroyed.
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.