Summer Trips: Grottos and Baggage

With summer approaching, some travel looks to be in our future. The American south east is full of strange roadside attractions, which means something for me to see in almost any direction from Atlanta. My wife would like to take a trip to the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. Looks to be a quick 2 hours drive. Howard Finster's folk art heaven-on-earth Paradise Gardens might be on the way. But since I would really like to see the Ave Maria Grotto (in Cullman, Al) we may have to pass up Howard's place.

"The Ave Maria Grotto known throughout the world as "Jerusalem in Miniature", is a beautifully landscaped, four-acre park designed to provide a natural setting for the 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most famous historic buildings and shrines of the world. The masterpieces of stone and concrete are the lifetime work of Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk of St. Bernard Abbey. Begun as a hobby, with various materials he could find, and infinite patience and a remarkable sense of symmetry and proportion, Brother Joseph re-created some of the greatest edifices of all time."

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Flickr: Photos tagged with paradisegardens

Flickr: Photos tagged with avemariagrotto

Flickr: unclaimed baggage center