World's 1000 beautiful tourist places

[charlestonschool]

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided gorge carved by the Colorado River in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park — one of the first national parks in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.

Ive been here twice...and i would say nothing can ever describe this place...its beauty needs a new word to define!

[Perfection]

Lourdes (420 m) is a world's leading Catholic Marian shrines in southwestern France. Lourdes was originally a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees. At that time, the most prominent feature was the fortified castle that rises up from the center of the town on a rocky escarpment.

On 11 February 1858, a 14-year-old local girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in the remote Grotto of Massabielle. The lady later identified herself as "the Immaculate Conception" and the faithful believe her to be the Blessed Virgin Mary. The lady appeared 18 times, and by 1859 thousands of pilgrims were visiting Lourdes. A statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was erected at the site in 1864.

The 150th Jubilee of the apparitions took place in September 2008. Today Lourdes has a population of around 15,000 inhabitants but is able to take in some 5 million pilgrims and tourists every season. With about 270 hotels, Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels in France after Paris.

From March to October the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is a place of mass pilgrimage from Europe and other parts of the world. An estimated 200 million people have visited the shrine since 1860. The spring water from the grotto is believed by some to possess healing properties, however there have been from the beginning sceptics of the miracles reported to have taken place in Lourdes. The Roman Catholic Church has officially recognized 67 miracle healings. Connected with this pilgrimage is often the consumption of or bathing in the Lourdes water which wells out of the Grotto. The candlelight and sacrament processions are very impressive.