This week we took a drive up to Chimayo to visit the Santuario de Chimayo. What a wonderful place to visit. We took Juliet and Harlee with us and they had fun exploring the grounds. We had lunch at the little cafe next to the church and roamed around the area. Here’s a little bit about the churches history…

El Santuario de Chimayo, a small shrine located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Chimayo, New Mexico, has been a place of worship since before its construction in 1813. For generations, American Indians, Hispanics, and other people of faith have traveled to the site of El Santuario to ask for healing for themselves and others, and to offer prayers of petition and of thanksgiving for favors received. Following a long tradition of miraculous shrines, El Santuario is now one of the most important Catholic pilgrimage centers in the United States and one of the most beautiful examples of Spanish Colonial architecture in New Mexico. Today El Santuario de Chimayo, also known as Lourdes of America, attracts over 300,000 pilgrims from all over the Southwest and elsewhere each year. Thousands of pilgrims walk to El Santuario from Santa Fe and other starting points during Holy Week.

Source: nps.gov