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Founded: 1608-1616Category: Palaces, manors and town halls in Germany
Historical period: Reformation & Wars of Religion (Germany)
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Schloss Holte is a baroque water castle from the 17th century located in the East Westphalian town of Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock. It is the successor to a water castle from the 14th century, which was destroyed by fire in 1556. Rebuilt as a hunting lodge from 1608 to 1616, incorporating existing building remnants, by Count Johann III. of East Frisia and his wife Sabina Catharina von Rietberg, it passed through marriage at the end of the 17th century to the Kaunitz family.
In 1822, Friedrich Ludwig Tenge acquired the neglected property and converted it into a residence for his son-in-law. Simultaneously, the entrepreneur built an ironworks south of the castle. The estate is still privately owned by the Tenge-Rietberg family, who have established rental apartments in the castle. The buildings and the park are not open to the public.
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.