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Houlbec-prés-le-Gros-Theil
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Founded: 13th centuryCategory: Miscellaneous historic sites in France
Historical period: Late Capetians (France)
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Château de Houlbec-près-le-Gros-Theil was originally a square castle with rounded corner towers. It was built in the Middle Ages and conquered by English in 1418 (Hundred Years' War) and by Catholic League in 1588 (during the Wars of Religion). The castle was rebuilt in 1786 and heavily damaged by fire in 1910. Today the château is abandoned but two towers and other signicant ruins still remain.
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.