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Founded: 1663Category: Palaces, manors and town halls in Sweden
Historical period: Swedish Empire (Sweden)
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Gripenberg Castle (Gripenbergs slott) is a wooden manor house. It is considered to be the biggest wooden castle in Sweden and one of the oldest that remain today as well.
The castle was built in 1663 as a huntig seat for the field marshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel. Its architect is unknown, but there is some reason to believe, that it might have been Nicodemus Tessin the Elder. It is assumed that the castle's name is derived from the name of Wrangel's mother Margareta Grip and that Wrangel might have chosen it to commemorate her. By the end of the 17th century the castle was bought by Samuel von Söderling and remained in the possession of his family until today.
References: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.