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Founded: 11th centuryCategory: Castles and fortifications in France
Historical period: Birth of Capetian dynasty (France)
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Château de Ballon is mentioned from the beginning of the 11th century. It is said to have been built by Robert I of Bellême to serve as a stronghold against the family of the Counts of Maine. The fortress quickly became the target of the Normans who sought to conquer the southern region.
From the 12th century onwards, Ballon passed into the hands of the Chaources family, who held the castle for two hundred years. The lordship was then under Anglo-Norman influence. In order to end the Plantagenet hegemony, Philip Augustus traveled to Maine. He captured Ballon twice in 1189 and 1199. The Ballon fortress was then burned and dismantled. Philip Augustus had it rebuilt and placed Hugues de Beauçais in charge.
During the Hundred Years' War, the fortress had to endure several sieges and was ravaged an conquered several times. The reconstruction of the keep and the part of Ballon began in 1469.
Today Château de Ballon is a triangle form castle with corner towers and moat. It has remarkable gardens built in the 1960s.
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.