A delightfully-accessible 13th-century fortress that now lies in ruins above Bosanska Krupa, this should be your first stop when in town. There isn’t a huge amount to see within the ruins (they are ruins, after all), but that intangible sense of history that only decrepitude can create is most certainly here. The views are stunning too, extending over both side of the city with the rivers playing a starring role. The fortress was originally in Croatian hands, although it eventually fell to the Ottomans in the 16th century, at which point the town began to grow. The Ottomans were sure to keep this spot well-stocked, as it was an important stronghold for their ambitions to spread west, although it never really worked out for them in that respect. This is history, intangible history, with added beauty.
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.