Skip to main content

Widensolen Grotto  

Adress :
rue de la forêt, 68320 Widensolen
Locate

Opening hours :
Free access all year

The Grotto, dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes, was constructed to resemble the famous sanctuary. It is situated on the edge of the Kastenwald forest, close to a spring dedicated to Saint Germain de Grandval. The spring, which for a long time was attributed miraculous powers, apparently sprang up after the burial of the saint in the forest in the 8th century.
In the 14th century, monks from the Abbey-Church of Pairis erected a chapel near the spring. This chapel was abandoned in 1746, after the murder of two Franciscan hermits who were guarding it. It was destroyed in 1788 and replaced by a small house the walls of which were covered with ex votos.
That house was itself destroyed during the Great War. We owe the Grotto to a priest, Georges Ehrhard, who presided over its construction in 1958.

LOCALISATION

rue de la forêt, 68320 Widensolen

Nearest Station : 12

How to go there