This is an architecture lover's dream, but it's even better than that. The real treasure of Grand Rapids' historic churches isn't just in the soaring vaulted ceilings, the stained-glass windows imported from the oldest workshop in Germany, or the organ people travel from all over Michigan to hear. It's in the stories of the people who built them: struggling immigrants who gave more than they could afford, American-born Polish who returned to Europe to fight under Poland's flag, and the remarkable fact that boulders dragged from the depths of the Grand River in the mid-1800s are still holding church walls strong today.

Grand Rapids' only church tour visits some of the city's most magnificent houses of worship, including the Cathedral of St. Andrew with its towering spires and breathtaking vaulted ceilings, and the gothic St. Mark's Episcopal, its walls built from river boulders pulled from the very rapids that gave the city its name. Each church tells a different story about the immigrant communities that made Grand Rapids what it is.