Near the port of Brindisi a set of monumental stairs climb from the waterfront to a small square with a column and the remains of another. These are the Roman Columns of Brindisi, the origins and purpose of which are still unknown. Historically, it’s believed the columns marked the end of the Via Appia, a massive Roman road that connected the capital to the port of Brindisi, or the Via Traiana, a later alternative to the Via Appia. Only one remains, the second having been misappropriated and removed to the neighbouring town of Lecce.
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.