Kevelaerer Heißluft-Ballon-Festival 19 - 20 August 2011

The Kevelaerer Heißluft-Ballon-Festival is a festival in the town of Kevelaer near Kleve in Germany. They 30th anniversary of the festival is celebrated on the 12th and 13th of July in 2024. It has been welcoming regular size and rc-balloons for many years with pilots coming from all over Europe.
Kevelaer is a center of veneration and pilgrimage to Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted (also known as Our Lady of Consolation. According to tradition, a merchant named Hendrik Busman, in the days before Christmas, 1641, three times heard a voice saying "Here thou shalt build me a chapel". He began to set money aside but feared his wife, Mechel, wouldn't approve. She, however, had a vision, around Pentecost, in which she saw a little chapel containing a print of Our Lady of Consolation, all bathed in light. The story was confirmed by two passing soldiers, who saw the house light up at night. Days before, two soldiers had tried to sell her two copperplate engravings with the same image on it, but she found it too expensive.
Hendrik began building the chapel while Mechel tried to obtain the print.
The chapel was consecrated and on 1 June 1642, the Sunday after Assumption of Mary, the print was displayed in it, and the chapel became such a popular destination for pilgrims that a church was built for them between 1643 and 1645. The little chapel was replaced in 1654 with a larger one, the Gnadenkapelle, which still houses the print.[4]
It is one of the best visited Catholic pilgrimage locations in north-western Europe. The Gnadenkapelle (English: Chapel of Mercy) has drawn pilgrims to the Lower Rhine Region from all over the world for more than 360 years.