Waldeck Castle was first mentioned in 1124. It was owned by the Landgraves of Leuchtenberg, who sold the castle in 1283 to Duke Ludwig of Bavaria. In the Spanish War of Succession, the castle was besieged by imperial troops , taken in October 1704 and demolished by order of Emperor Joseph I. Although the castle was rebuilt, it was burned down in 1794 and since then has been ruined. Since 1982, the ruins have been excavated and restored.
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.