Bürresheim Castle is a medieval castle northwest of Mayen. It is built on rock in the Eifel mountains above the Nette. Bürresheim Castle, Eltz Castle and Lissingen Castle are the only castles in the Eifel region which have never been destroyed. It was inhabited until 1921 and is now a museum.
Built in the 12th century, Bürresheim was first mentioned in 1157 with its former owners, the noble Eberhard and Mettfried “de Burgenesem”. The castle consists of buildings constructed between the twelfth and the seventeenth century. Almost all of it is original, including the twelfth century keep, which is the oldest part. The castle was never taken or raised or slighted (unlike almost all other Rhine castles). It featured in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which it was called Brunwald Castle.
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.