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Founded: 1840sCategory: Palaces, manors and town halls in Finland
Historical period: Russian Grand Duchy (Finland)
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Urajärvi Manor belonged for almost two and a half centuries to the von Heideman family of Baltic-German origin. The estate came to the family in 1672, and the last owner of the von Heideman family, Lilly von Heideman, died in 1917. The last von Heidemans in the manor were the unmarried siblings Lilly (1849-1917) and Hugo (1851-1915) von Heideman. They bequeathed their home to be maintained as museum.
The Empire style main building was built to the present shape in 1840s. During von Heidemans lifetime, the siblings decorated a wing situated in the garden as a museum. The building is called the old museum. The old museum displays the family’s old furniture and other objects. The manor is surrounded by an English park with its remains of old gate and small bridges. Hugo von Heideman’s fascinating path leads the walker to the vista point Valhalla which has a semi-circular colonnade built in 1913 in antique style.
Urajärvi Manor is one of Finland’s oldest manor museums and was opened to the public in 1928. Museum is closed 2008-2012 due to renovation.
Reference: National Board of Antiques
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.