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The first written mention of Sokolov is from 1279 under a name Falkenau / Falknov. The town was a property of noble families of Nothaft and later Schlick. The Schlick family built here a small castle.
The current palace was built after 1663 in the late renaissance style on the groundwork of the former castle of the Schlick era surrounded by water canal, that was heavily damaged during the Thirty Year's War. To the time period of this reconstruction belongs also the fountain standing in the central courtyard bearing the coats of arms of Jan Hartvik Nostic and his wife Maria Eleonora Popel of Lobkowitz. Originally the palace had two gates and cupolas on the towers. It was encircled by a water canal, surrounded by a park decorated with sculptures and a deer-park. In 19th century it was remodeled in the classicist and later architectonic styles; that's when the towers got the recent typical spires. In 1619 it hosted the so called 'Winter King' Friedrich of Falconia, also the Emperor Joseph I with his wife Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick stayed here in 1702. In 1945 it was the headquarters of the American Army that liberated the region annexed to the German territory in the time period of 1938-1945. Since 1960 the Sokolov palace is the seat of the Regional Museum which specializes in the history of the region, the history of mining and related geology and ecology.
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.