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The Reggia di Val Casotto, or Valcasotto is a former royal residence located in Garessio, region of Piedmont. A structure at the site was founded in the 11th century as the Certosa di San Brunone (Charterhouse of St Bruno) housing monks of the cloistered Carthusian order. They were finally expelled by the invading French forces at the end of the 18th century.
Earlier in the 18th century, under the direction of the architects Francesco Gallo and Bernardo Vittone, part had been refurbished into a rural palace. In 1837, King Charles Albert of Sardinia refurbished it again, accentuating the castle like elements. King Victor Emmanuel II used the palace as a hunting lodge. Today Reggia is open from spring to autumn by reservation.
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.