Engelstein Castle was first mentioned in 1417 but it is probably much older. It is probable that at first it was a simple watch tower, guarding a nearby road crossing, which was upgraded to a water castle after the destruction of Hadmarstein Castle on the nearby Johannisberg mountain at the end of the 13th century. It was situated on a granite cliff surrounded on 3 sides by small lakes.
In 1531 the castle went to Benedikt Schaul who started to transform the still medieval fortress into a Renaissance castle. The Barons of Windhag continued this elaborate reconstruction and gave the castle its present outlook. The costs however were so enormous that the barons were soon heavily indebted after which the castle was confiscated at the end of the 16th century.
In 1619 Engelstein Castle was stormed by Imperial troops and plundered. In 1681 it was bought by Adam Anton Graf Gundemann, whose descendants owned the castle for the next 150 years. Then it went to the Barons of Geusau who owned it until 1916.
Several other owners followed until it was acquired by the industrialist Erich Meinl in 1964. By then the castle was in a bad state due to being plundered and neglected during and after World War II. Now the bailey is inhabited by a descendant of Meinl.
At present Engelstein Castle is privately inhabited and can thus not be visited.
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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.