One of the popular tourist spots in Baguio City among devout Catholics is the Lourdes Grotto which sits on top of Mirador Hill in the western part of the city. The image of Our Lady of Lourdes can be reached by climbing a total of 252 steps staggered into several flights (and I’ve ascended these stairs twice already). It’s a good thing that Baguio is a cool place or otherwise, you’d be sweating by the time you reach the top. But for those who have shortness of breath, you can opt to go up via a zigzag road that crisscrosses the said stairway.
Photo from the City of Pines website
There are plenty of stores at the lower areas selling various religious souvenir items such as statuettes and rosaries. Candles and some flowers can also be bought at those stores which one can then offer as veneration to Mary when you reach the top. Anyway, if you climb some more steps from the image of the Lady, you can see a Jesuit retreat house behind closed gates (pictured in the thumbnail). (The Jesuits established the grotto in 1907.)
If you want to learn a bit more and to see more pictures, visit this page from the City of Pines website. There’s also plenty of pictures in Flickr including this gem that depicts how the grotto looked like several decades ago.
Download KML file (for Google Earth)
