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Founded: 15th centuryCategory: Castles and fortifications in France
Historical period: Valois Dynasty and Hundred Year's War (France)
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The Château de Marconnay is a 15th-century castle located in the commune of Sanxay, in the Vienne department of France. It blends Gothic and Renaissance architectural styles. The lordship of Marconnay belonged to the Lévesque family from at least 1369 until 1683. It was then purchased by Charlotte de Vernoux, a lady-in-waiting to Madame de Montespan, and remained in her possession until 1719, when a fire severely damaged the castle. Afterward, it was managed by tax farmers.
Surrounded by a water-filled moat, the castle consists of a rectangular enclosure containing the main house and outbuildings. A two-arched stone bridge crosses the moat, leading to a gatehouse topped with a domed roof and a small structure. It features two round-arched doors — one for carts, the other for pedestrians — and was originally protected by two drawbridges and defended by machicolations. The gatehouse dates to the 17th century.
Two round towers with 15th-century cannon openings flank the walls. The main residence includes a rectangular 15th-century building connected to a polygonal staircase tower, as well as an L-shaped wing added in the 17th century but never completed. This newer wing features an elegant entrance flanked by two slender columns supporting a decorative entablature, and two mullioned windows with one dormer, framed by fluted pilasters.
Do not miss to go inside to discover an exhibition of old tools.
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.