For its strategic position, Vieste was always one of the greatest landmarks of defense of the Gargano and preserved until 1846 the title of Piazza d'Armi. All the rulers of the Kingdom of southern Italy, Normans to the Bourbons have always held in the highest regard this advanced place of the Adriatic Sea.
The castle, that dominates with its imposing the medieval district is traced back to the second half of the 11th century, when the count of Vieste was the Norman Robert Drengot. Distinguishes itself from the buildings and the surrounding landscape for its brown color, and stands overlooking the calcareous rocks overlooking the sea. It is a triangular, accompanied the corners (North. East and West) of three bastions at the tip of the lance, which incorporate the most ancient with a circular base. To the south instead, on the limit of the high cliff of the coast, stood the factory with the chapel, a series of houses and a small sixteenth-century bastion. During the struggles between the Papacy and Federico II (1240), suffered with the city, by the Venetians, considerable damage. It is currently used by the Italian Navy.
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.