The Château de Ramstein is a ruined castle in the commune of Baerenthal. This 13th-century castle was built by the lords of Falkenstein on the instructions of the bishop of Strasbourg to control the Zinselbach valley, probably in 1292. During the course of the 14th century, the lords of Ramstein transformed it into a den of brigands and it was destroyed in 1355 during a punitive expedition by the Strasbourgeois and their allies from Bern.
Below the castle can be seen two underground passages dug in 1936 by French military engineers as part of the Maginot Line. They were used as shelter by the local population during the battles of winter 1944-45. This site is currently closed to protect a colony of bats.
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.