Lourdes

We rolled out of Cairanne at 9:30 this morning and began what ended up being a five and one half hour autoroute trip - 550km - enough! Being non Catholic, we really didn't know what to expect in Lourdes. But after the route to our hotel took us immediately in front of the famous church, we were hard pressed not to run over nurses wheeling the infirm in their wheel chairs to the shrine.

Holy Smokes! If not Smokes, Holy something! This place is nuts! The old city is packed with huge hotels to host all of the millions of pilgrims who visit here each year to visit the Grotto of Massabielle, where the Virgin Mary apparently presented herself to a 14 year old peasant girl named Bernadette over 150 years ago - yeah you guessed. I'm not a believer, but it's important to point out that I would be in the extreme minority here. After checking into Hotel Roissy, steps from the shrine, we headed out to see it up close passing the intriguing Catholic commercialism along the way.

The 51 hectares of this site has the Gave de Pau River running through it and even on a dismally drizzling and overcast day like today, the site is extremely photogenic.

Our Lady of Lourdes towers above the Massabielle Grotto where the miraculous apparition occurred. The water coming from this grotto is considered to have healing powers, thus all the people in wheelchairs. They've analyzed the water and of course there is no test for healing powers, so for all the non-believers, this water is just water. That doesn't stop the masses from hauling this water out of here in containers of all sizes. So in response to my earlier query, Holy What, I guess it's Holy Water!

There's a lot of candle lighting going on here - apparently 800 tonnes of wax melts here yearly.

There are two major events here each day - a mass at 5:00 and a candle light procession at 9:00. We managed to wander in on the mass.

Another tourist attraction that has an awesome view over town, but is not really on most tourist's radar given the Lady of Lourdes, is the Chateau fort de Lourdes.

There is interesting architecture here at the foot of the Pyrenees. The huge and clearly historic hotels here are very beautiful and homes in the countryside are similar to homes in the Black Forest of Germany.

We have opted for half pension at this hotel, so had dinner in their dining room, a nice four course meal featuring duck a la orange as the main. Then we headed back to Lady of Our Lourdes to watch the candlelight procession. Some people come prepared with candles, but most buy them in the gift shops. The strong smell of parafin got to Dawn who had to return to the hotel to relieve her coughing spell. There were thousands involved in this parade, many infirm, being pulled in little covered carts. I don't think any of my photos have done this justice, but here they are to create some sense of the event.