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Founded: 1040Category: Castles and fortifications in France
Historical period: Birth of Capetian dynasty (France)
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Situated in a natural basin formed by the Dive River, Château de Moncontour overlooks the village of Moncontour and served as a strategic lookout point.
It was originally built around 1040 by Fulk Nerra. The surviving keep dates from the 12th century and was modified in the 13th and 14th centuries. The castle is centered around a square keep with flat buttresses, standing 24 meters high, and surrounded by strong stone walls. The current remains span from the 12th to the 14th centuries.
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.