The Elisabethenkirche is a well detailed example of Swiss Gothic Revival style churches. It has a 72 metres tall bell tower and spire. The tower has internal stairs. The church was begun in 1857 and completed in 1864. The construction was sponsored by the wealthy Basel businessman Christoph Merian and his wife Margarethe Burckhardt-Merian. They were both laid to rest in black marble sarcophagi in the crypt below the church's main floor.
Today the church is home of the first Swiss 'OpenChurch' or Offene Kirche Elisabethen. The Offene Kirche Elisabethen caters to the spiritual, cultural and social needs of urban people of all backgrounds.
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.