It is strange what can grow out of a story.
Even from stories whose truth we can never know for certain.

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In 1858, Holy Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in a cave in Lourdes. Fact or fiction? We do not know, but the story spread like a shockwave across Europe. Replicas of the cave can be found all over the continent.
 

In Belgium, we took it a step further. Around some of these sites, entire Marian parks where build. They consist not merely of Lourdes replica’s, but out of complete landscapes in which biblical scenes were recreated. You can walk past replicas of Babylonian temples or even enter a rock cave, representing the tomb of Jesus.
 

These places were mainly built between 1890 and 1960, during a period of strong Catholic revival in Flanders. Mostly in the aftermath of the First and Second World Wars, as places of gratitude.
 

These sites once attracted large crowds. Processions and pilgrimages were even organised here. Today, this is hard to imagine, and most of the parks have fallen quiet.
 

Others are still flourishing, or have taken on a different meaning. They remain places of gathering, for different reasons, constantly shifting in their state of being. But all of them once built out of devotion, with stone and concrete.