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Founded: ca. 1400Category: Castles and fortifications in Estonia
Historical period: Danish and Livonian Order (Estonia)
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Laiuse Castle was the first castle in Estonia built to cope with firearms. The oldest part of the castle was probably built in the end of 14th century by the Livonian Order. It was first mentioned in 1406. In 1558 during the Livonian War the castle was conquered by Russian troops and badly damaged. Nonetheless the castle was later still in use both by Polish and Swedish rulers. During the Great Northern War, from 1700 to1701, after the Battle of Narva, the Swedish king Charles XII established his winter quarters here. For five months Laiuse was the administrative center of Swedish Empire.
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.