Places of pilgrimage are often places of great natural grandeur, possibly less in acknowledgement of a masterwork of the Creator than of a human propensity for investing certain kinds of geographical feature with symbolism. Certain places, particularly mountains, caves, rivers, and springs, have from ancient times been thought of as the dwelling places of the gods, or places where the world of the gods and the human world intersect. The place itself was (and often still is) regarded as holy, regardless of what human history has been enacted there through the ages.
— Jennifer Westwood, On Pilgrimage