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Founded: 12th centuryCategory: Castles and fortifications in France
Historical period: Birth of Capetian dynasty (France)
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The Château de Beaumont is a ruined medieval fortress located in Beaumont Saint-Cyr, in the Vienne department of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. Built atop a 140-meter-high tuffeau cliff, it overlooks the Clain Valley by about 60 meters, providing a strategic vantage point over the Tours–Poitiers road. The site now lies among vineyards near the old village center.
The earliest known reference to a lord of Beaumont dates back to 1069, with the “castrum” first mentioned in 1123 and the main tower in 1237. The castle was likely the seat of a châtellenie under the barony of Colombiers.
The remaining structure includes a partially ruined Romanesque tower with a near-square layout measuring approximately 13.5 by 14 meters. In the 15th century, Aimery de Brisay added a spiral staircase tower and several turrets with cannon slits. While these additions were meant for defense, their poor internal connectivity made them of limited tactical use.
About 60 meters south of the main tower lies the motte, which once supported a second rectangular donjon, now collapsed and buried. A remnant of the original wall remains visible, and the site includes an underground passage accessible through a 19th-century quarry.
Nearby stood the Chapel of Saint George, mentioned as early as 1032 in church records. Though only ruins remain today, the Château de Beaumont offers a glimpse into the area's feudal past and architectural evolution.
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.