Thierstein Castle was built in the early 14th century by Albrecht VI of Wildstein. Later it was moved to the hands of Nuremberg burgraves and the house of Hohenzollern. In 1553, during the Second Margrave War, Thierstein was occupied by Bohemian troops. In 1603 Margrave Georg Friedrich of Brandenburg ordered to abandon the castle and the construction of a new office building outside the village of Thierstein. Nevertheless, the most necessary repairs were still carried out at the Thierstein castle during the Thirty Years' War. The end of the Thierstein castle came in 1725, when it was destroyed by fire.
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.