Built between 1899 and 1904, Savoia Castle in Gressonay-St-Jean was where Queen Margherita, widow of King Umberto I, lived for many summers up to 1925, the year before she died. It was designed by Stramucci, who also designed the Neo-Baroque decor in the Royal Palace in Turin, and the Quirinale in Rome. Externally covered in grey stone from the quarries in Gressoney, Gaby and Vert, Savoy Castle is split over 3 floors comprised of living quarters, royal apartments and gentlemen’s rooms. The original kitchens were separate and connected by an underground railway. A few pieces of original furniture and some tapestries remain, as well as ornamental paintings by Cussetti and other furniture by Dellera. The foot of the manor hosts a rocky garden full of Alpine botanical species.
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.