Fort Lupin, also known as Fort de la Charente, is an artillery battery in Saint-Nazaire-sur-Charente, in the department of Charente-Maritime. It was built in the 1680s to a design by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, and it is now in good condition.
The fort consists of a semi-circular gun battery ringed by a parapet with twenty-two embrasures. A tour-réduit and two blockhouses are located at the gorge. The fort is further protected by a ditch, a covertway and a glacis.
Fort Lupin was never attacked, and it never fired its guns in anger. It was decommissioned in the late 19th century, and was subsequently abandoned and vandalized.
The fort was sold to a private owner in 1964. The owners have restored the fort, and today it is in good condition. It is not open to the public on a regular basis.
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.