Of course, everyone visits lourdes for the religious significance of it, the healing waters, the basilica, the candlelit procession and more. But there is also a wonderful little museum in the city.

Le Petit Lourdes is a museum and a diorama all in one. It is large at about half a football field in size and it is a loose replica of the beginning of Lourdes and the life of Bernadette in 1858.

You walk around the grounds with a speaker box which explains to you the various buildings and scenes.

It is quite remarkable.

I also have a video that you can watch at the bottom of this page.

One man devoted 25 years of his life to make this museum/diorama. It is in 1/30 scale and it has all the important things about Lourdes including the Basilica, the Lapacca Mills, Lourdes Castle and of course the Grotto.

Let's take a look at some pictures.

Doesn't it look real? It's not! It is all a scale model. To give you a sense of the perspective and scale of it take note of the wooden hand rail in the foreground of this next picture. I am standing behind that rail.

The Grotto:

The Lourdes Castle at the top of the small mountain.

Watch the video here:

A Note from Will: I absolutely love dioramas and miniature scenes. And I have made a whole lot of them. I have hundreds of tutorials on how to make them. Check out those sections of my website here:

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