Tuštanj Castle was built in 1490 and fully renovated in the second half of the 17th century. It was originally owned by the Lichtenberg family. In 1800 it was purchased by Ignac Scarija. The last owner from the Scarija family was Maksimiljana Scarija, who married the castle's groundsman, Luka Pirnat, in 1854. They had no children, so after Scarija's death the castle and the estate were inherited by her husband, who remarried in 1874. The castle has remained in the possession of the Pirnat family until the present day. It is the only castle in Slovenia to have never been nationalized.
Tuštanj Castle has an inner courtyard with a fountain, surrounded by an arched portico. Next to the castle, a chapel of St. John of Nepomuk was built in the 17th century and painted in fresco by Franc Jelovšek. Next to the castle entrance grow a 400-year-old linden and a 300-year-old plane tree.
The part of the castle converted into a museum houses original furniture, porcelain, fief ownership records, ceramic stoves and other original furnishings. Various cultural events are held in the inner courtyard in the summer. The castle has a wedding hall, where couples can choose to be married in medieval costumes.
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.