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Govone Castle is located in the town of Govone, in the province of Cuneo. It was a royal residence of the House of Savoy from 1792 to 1870. Since 1997, it's been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site 'Savoy Residences' and now serves as the town hall.
A medieval fortress once stood on the site. In the late 1600s, the Solaro family commissioned architect Guarino Guarini to expand and beautify it, though his plans were completed later by Benedetto Alfieri. Acquired by the Savoy family in 1792, the castle became a summer residence. King Charles Felix and Queen Maria Cristina restored it and redesigned the gardens in Italian style. Notably, philosopher Rousseau stayed there in 1730. By the late 1800s, it became property of the municipality.
Since 2007, it's part of the 'Castelli Doc' network, which includes several notable castles in Piedmont.
A highlight is the grand double staircase, adorned with sculptures from the Venaria Reale gardens. The castle also features Chinese wallpaper and frescoes, including a ballroom painted with scenes of Niobe by Luigi Vacca and Fabrizio Sevesi.
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.