Wettolsheim is a communes

Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 in the Haut-Rhin

Haut-Rhin

Haut-Rhin is a département of the Alsace region of France, named after the Rhine river. Its name means Upper Rhine. Haut-Rhin is the smaller and less populated of the two departements of Alsace, although is still densely populated compared to the rest of France.-Subdivisions:The department...

 department in Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 in north-eastern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

It is situated at the eastern margin of the southern Vosges Mountains

Vosges mountains

For the department of France of the same name, see Vosges.The Vosges are a range of low mountains in eastern France, near its border with Germany. They extend along the west side of the Rhine valley in a northnortheast direction, mainly from Belfort to Saverne...

. The commune is part of the Parc naturel régional des Ballons des Vosges.

Places of interest

Grotte de Lourdes grandeur réelle: In 1912, after the destruction of the house of his birth by a fire, arch bishop François-Xavier Schoepfer (1843–1927), bishop of Tarbes

Tarbes

Tarbes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France.It is part of the historical region of Gascony. It is the second largest metropolitan area of Midi-Pyrénées, with 110,000 inhabitants....

 and Lourdes

Lourdes

Lourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France.Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous...

 from 1899 until 1927, decided to let build an exact copy of the grotto

Grotto

A grotto is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associated with modern, historic or prehistoric use by humans. When it is not an artificial garden feature, a grotto is often a small cave near water and often flooded or liable to flood at high tide...

 Massabielle in Lourdes at the same place where the house stood. The statue of the Virgin Mary was made of stone coming from the site where St. Bernadette Soubirous

Bernadette Soubirous

Saint Marie-Bernarde Soubirous was a miller's daughter born in Lourdes. From 11 February to 16 July 1858, she reported 18 apparitions of "a small young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at that site at Lourdes....

 first saw the Immaculate Conception

Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception of Mary is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, according to which the Virgin Mary was conceived without any stain of original sin. It is one of the four dogmata in Roman Catholic Mariology...

in 1858. The cavern in the heart of the village is still a place for a lot of religious ceremonies.