Žebrák Castle is a castle ruin in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It is located in the municipality of Točník in the Beroun District, near the eponymous town of Žebrák. It was built by the Zajíc family. The two castles, Točník and Žebrák, make up a picturesque couple, standing almost right next to each other. Together they are protected as one national cultural monument.
The castle was built in the second half of the 13th century by Oldřich Zajíc III, but the Zajíc family soon moved elsewhere and sold the castle to the king. In 1336, the House of Luxembourg acquired Žebrák and in 1346, John Henry started renovating it. He later gave the castle to Charles IV, who became the Holy Roman Emperor shortly afterwards. Charles' son Wenceslaus IV liked the castle very much, but after the large fire in 1395, he built a more strategically positioned castle above it. During the Hussite Wars, the Hussite army unsuccessfully besieged Žebrák and Točník and then proceeded to burn down the towns Točník and Hořovice. In 1532, another fire struck the castle, but this time, nobody bothered renovating it. In the year 1923, the castle was sold to the Czech Association of Tourists and now it belongs to the state.
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.