Grimburg Castle was built around 1190 by the Archbishops of Trier to serve them as a regional castle. It was the seat of office for almost 40 Hochwald communities and received a town charter in the 14th century. The castle was taken in 1522 by Franz von Sickingen.
In 1978 the castle was woken from a long slumber and partly restored in the following years. The intensive efforts of the “Friends of Grimburg Castle“ have made it possible to give the numerous visitors of today a rough picture of a medieval castle site. Viewing is possible all year round and the admission is free.
The castle complex extends for a length of about 300 meters and a width of around 90 meters. Thus, the Grimburg was, if not the most significant, at least the most spacious among the former Kurtrier state castles. It comprises a outer bailey, a rectangular keep, a hall (palas), and a chapel. The lower church served the residents of the outer bailey for worship, while the upper church, functioning as a gallery with its own entrance, remained reserved for the archbishop and his officials.
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.