::: Mar del Plata's Port - Lourdes Mountain Cave :::

Inspired on the famous French grotto of the same name, it is established on an ancient stone pit and surrounded by thick vegetation. At the topside the visitor will find San José’s Oratory, the Santería, the church and a scale copy of Belen and Jerusalem cities. In the grotto, out in the open, the Chapel is placed.

THE FOUNDATION
In 1927, a little group of sisters from “Pequeñas Hermanas de la Divina Providencia” (Divine Providence’s Little Sisters), starts the educative task in a port’s poor neighbourhood. The girls, Madre Teresa’s passion, her predilection’s object, taking the Master’s example: “let the children come to me… the one that admits a child like this in my name, admits me” (Mat. 18,5)
Thus the school of the “Immaculate Conception”, that today houses more than 900 girl students, was born. Christ’s Word, love of Virgin and respect for the fatherland has been cultivated there during several generations.

THE GROTTO

Eventually, the work becomes over-grown. A heroic sister, Concepta Ghersi, better known by the community as la “Mamma”, whose venerable remains rest at the Grotto’s Chapel entrance began the task of raising a Sanctuary in honour of Nuestra Señora de Lourdes’s Virgin.

This work started in 1937 when Dr. Norberto F. Peralta Ramos donated a plot of land to “Pequeñas Hermanas de la Divina Providencia”. This place was near the school “Inmaculada Concepción” that was managed by the sisters, surrounded by 12 de Octubre, Don Orione, Magallanes and Elisa Alvear de Bosch Streets. It was some time ago that this plot of land had been transformed in a stone pit from where stones for construction were extracted. The project and the execution were in care of the known architect Luis Cossa.

Annually visited by several hundreds of devotes and tourists, preferment the days before 11th of February -Virgin’s celebration day- the grotto is an almost exact copy of the one in France, with the Via Crucis on the left from the entrance, and the Holy Rosary’s mysteries on the right. Both of them end in the beautiful Chapel that is presided by the Blessed Virgin crowned image.