Ave Maria Grotto is a miniature village of famous religious (and a few non-religious) sites from around the world that was built by a monk. Brother Joseph Zoettl was born in Bavaria and came to th eSt. Bernard Abbey in Cullman to study to become a priest when he was a teenager. When he was young, he had an injury that permanently damaged his back, eliminating his dream of becoming a priest. So he became a monk instead and devoted his free hours to building these miniatures out of recycled materials. Most of sites he had never visited himself and so depended on photos to recreate the miniatures. In one case, the photo was printed backwards and so his miniature is actually backwards. It is really neat to walk through and see all the creations.
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| Wayside Shrine |
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| St. Martin's Church in Landshut, Bavaria |
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| Temple of the Fairy |
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| Hansel and Gretel |
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| Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile, Alabama |
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| The campus of where Brother Josef lived in Cullman, Alabama |
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| The Alamo |
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| St. Anselm's in Rome |
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| St. Peter's Basilica in Rome |
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| The Colosseum |
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| St. Paul's Outside the Walls |
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| Aqueduct |
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| The Leaning Tower of Pisa |
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| The Ave Maria Grotto |
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| Scenes from the Holy Land |
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| Statute of Brother Joseph |
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| Noah's Ark |
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| The Tower of Babel |
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| The Great Wall of China |
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| Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in Portugal |
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| Lourdes Shrine in the south of France |
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| Basilica of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, Poland |
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| Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion, Wisconsin |
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| Saturn I |
In the Saturn V Hall:
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| Pathfinder |
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| Location of the International Space Station while we were there - it circles the Earth 16 times a day! |
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| Live camera from the International Space Station |
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