Krakovec Castle was founded in 1381 by burgrave of Křivoklát, Jíra of Roztoky. As the head of the royal ironworks and a protégé of King Wenceslas IV, he built a comfortable residence in an advanced architectural style. The remains of the castle still prove that Jíra was a rich and powerful man. The castle he built was a spectacular and luxurious facility, on the same level of art value and comfort as royal castles.
The palace of the Krakovec castle was built as a three wing, two floor building. Some building adjustments were made in the early 16th century (late gothic windows), and in the 17th century (renaissance gables, unpreserved). The horseshoe-shaped tower in the front side of the castle core is made of rubble-stones.
No major reconstruction has ever been done at Krakovec. In 1783, wooden parts of buildings were destroyed by fire, never to be repaired.
In 1855, a large part of the chapel collapsed; in 1883, the eastern wing was torn down by dynamite.
Currently, the best preserved part of the palace is the southern wing in its entire height. Of the western wing, the outer wall has been preserved, and parts of the lateral walls; all that’s left of the eastern wing is the outer wall under the courtyard level.
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.