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Founded: 14th centuryCategory: Castles and fortifications in France
Historical period: Valois Dynasty and Hundred Year's War (France)
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Château de Morthemer rises above the village of Morthemer in Valdivienne community. The castle dates originally from the 12th century, but the imposing keep was built in the 14th century. There are two parts: the massive keep with its four corner towers and the small castle at its feet next to the church of Notre-Dame. The whole was then restored around 1865 by Emile Boeswillwald, collaborator of Viollet-le-Duc, at the request of the baron de Soubeyran. In particular, he gave the keep its defensive aspect by arranging the covered way at its top and by taking over the windows.
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.