Trani has lost its old city walls and bastions, but the 13th-century fort has been extensively restored as a museum and performance venue and is open to the public.
The castle was commissioned by Frederick II of Swabia in 1230. It was completed three years later, although consolidation of the structure continued for a further fifteen years. Like many other castles, it was modified in the 16th century when Charles V reinforced the defensive structure by adding two bastions equipped with fire arms.
The Castle, with its quadrangular base, is one of the finest existing examples of Swabian defensive architecture. Originally featuring square-base towers on each corner and a central courtyard, it was later fortified with the addition of an external wall. It stands by the sea and was, in the past, directly linked to the water. It used to have a wooden drawbridge.
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.