Details
Founded: 14th centuryCategory: Castles and fortifications in Germany
Historical period: Habsburg Dynasty (Germany)
User Reviews
Ehrenstein Castle was first time documented in 1331. It was destroyed by Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War and not rebuilt again. Today two towers and some walls remain.
The adjacent Ehrenstein monastery was built by the castle owner Bertram von Nesselrode in 1486-1488. Today the church remains and contains some beautiful medieval glass paintings.
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.