The construction of Rietburg castle is dated to the period 1200 to 1204 and ascribed to the lords of Riet. These noblemen were initially vassals of the North Alsatian Benedictine abbey of Weißenburg, later they became ministeriales and feudatories of the then German Hohenstaufen lords.
In 1470, during the Weißenburg Feud between Prince-Elector Frederick the Victorious of the Palatinate and his cousin, Duke Louis the Black of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, the Rietburg was shelled by Leiningen troops and badly damaged, but remained inhabitable. The castle survived the Palatine Peasants' War of 1525 unscathed, but was finally destroyed during the Thirty Years' War (1618–48) and never rebuilt.
Since 1954, a chair lift, known as the Rietburgbahn has run from the Rhine Plain up to a terrace on the eastern side of the Rietburg. The return journey offers good views over the plain. The bottom station is accessible on foot or by car and is located near the schloss of Villa Ludwigshöhe, a stately residence built from 1846 to 1852 by order of Louis I of Bavaria.
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.