The village of Panschwitz-Kuckau is dominated by the huge monastery of St Marienstern. It was founded as a Cistercian monastery in 1248. The current structures mainly date from the 17th and 18th century. The complex contains a Klosterstube (monastery restaurant), a bakery, and a small botanical/herb garden to the south-east open at a small charge.
The small river Klosterwasser runs through the monastery and would have served its water and brewing needs.
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.