The town of Lucq-de-Béarn developed in the tenth century around the Abbey of Saint Vincent, founded around 970 AD. It has a great reputation at the end of the thirteenth century by hosting several times the King of England Edward I and part of his court came to settle a conflict between the kings of France and Aragon. This charming little medieval village has also suffered religious wars which it will be very difficult to recover.
St Vincent church is in Romanesque-Gothic style church built between 12th and 16th centuries. The bell-tower entrance and its door in basket weave patterns and the doorway which dates from the 16th century invite you to enter the church.
There is a fifth century sarcophagus in the church. Sculpted entirely from white marble it was discovered in the 19th century under the church floor-tiles and now serves as the altar. Capitals sculpted in the 12th century stand side-by-side with altarpieces, pictures and paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries.
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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.