{"id":647,"date":"2016-12-27T06:58:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T06:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/27\/a-pilgrimage-to-lourdes\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T04:59:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:59:44","slug":"a-pilgrimage-to-lourdes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/27\/a-pilgrimage-to-lourdes\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pilgrimage to Lourdes"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nNovember 29, 2016, Tuesday: <\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nA Pilgrimage to Lourdes<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span><\/span><\/b>We
\narrived on schedule at Toulouse at 6.45 am after poor Llew complained that he
\nhad barely slept. I, on the other hand, had slept fairly well considering that
\nI was sitting up in a moving train\u2014but that was because I had dozed myself with
\nmedication to kill a cold that I had picked up in Israel. At 7.41, we boarded
\nanother train from Toulouse for Lourdes and arrived at Montrajet-Gourdan
\nPoligny at 9.40 am. We had about an hour to wait at that small village in the
\nmidst of nowhere and decided to take a little walk. A bus (also run by the
\nSNCF\u2014Syndicat Nationale de Chemin de Fer<\/i>)
\nthat we boarded at 10.41 am eventually got us to Lourdes to 12 noon! As you can
\nsee, getting to Lourdes is not easy\u2014even if you take trains from Paris. No
\nwonder people prefer to drive to Lourdes. But, if you can believe it, we really
\ndid enjoy all these bits of the journey as they were quite pleasant, offered
\nwonderful scenery and allowed us to chat and catch up on our many months of absence.
\nThe last bit (the bus ride) was particularly nice as the Pyrennes came into
\nview with their snow caps.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nArrival in Lourdes:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>However, Lourdes turned out to be a
\nreal disappointment in many ways. For one thing, I guess November is not the
\ntime to be there as it is way past the \u2018season\u2019. Once we alighted from the bus
\nat the bus station, we obtained a map from the Tourist Information Center at
\nthe train station and the lady there showed me exactly how to get to the
\nBasilica\u2014which is the biggest attraction.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>Walking there took about fifteen
\nminutes. Throughout the walk we found that every single commercial
\nestablishment was shut\u2014every restaurant, most hotels and almost all the
\nsouvenir shops. The only ones open were those nearest to the basilica. The Basilica
\nhas been built on the top of the grotto at which the Virgin Mary appeared to a
\nsimple village girl called Bernadette in\u2026.. The village catapulted into global
\nprominence and began to draw large numbers of pilgrims. So large were the
\ncrowds that the basilica was built to sanctify the venue. It is a very
\nelaborate building and characterized by two levels\u2014an upper and a lower. From
\nthe front, it looks almost like a fairy-tale castle with its towering conical
\nturrets and its beautiful location on the banks of the River Pau. Autumn had
\nbrought lovely russet color to the trees that framed the church.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>There is an elaborate mosaic at the
\nentrance of the lower church but long before we arrived there, we were stunned
\nby the number and size of the candles that had been lit by the faithful. Every
\nsingle one of the decades of the Rosary are interpreted upon the walls of the
\nchurch in Byzantine mosaics. When we had spent a while in the church, we went
\noutside to the grotto to pray there. It is lovely that they have retained the
\ngrotto exactly as it was and have constructed the church to rise above it. The
\ngrotto does not have a statue of Bernadette\u2014surprisingly\u2014just one of Mary.
\nThere too, we took pictures and said a few Hail Marys for the many people who asked
\nus to pray for them at Lourdes.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>Unfortunately, the pools at which
\npeople take a ritualistic dunking, were all closed as it would simply be too
\ncold for anyone to take a dip. Similarly, although we crossed the bridge over
\nthe Pau, we found that the smaller church on the other side, closes on October
\n1 and remains closed up to April 1. So, apart from actually praying in the
\nbasilica, there was not much we could do in Lourdes. But that was okay because
\nthat was exactly why we had made our pilgrimage to Lourdes. On our way back to
\nthe railway station, we found a souvenir store opened and from there, we did
\nbuy a magnet and our postcard. But that was it. Still, despite the
\ndisappointment, it was nice to eventually get to Lourdes and be able to
\ncontinue the pilgrimage that we had started in the Holy Land.  <\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nReturn to Paris:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n            <\/span>Since we had more than an hour to
\nwait at Lourdes station for our return direct train to Paris which left at 4.34
\npm, we used the time to make a reservation for the night, through Hotels.com,
\nin a centrally-located hotel in Paris called Hotel Liege Strasbourg<\/i> and it was there that we reached at about
\n10.30 pm. It turned out to be a really nice hotel\u2014clean, safe and up on the
\nfifth floor of the building, it offered lovely views of the rooftops of Paris.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n <\/div>\n
\nA demain<\/em>…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 29, 2016, Tuesday: A Pilgrimage to Lourdes             We arrived on schedule at Toulouse at 6.45 am after poor Llew complained that he had barely slept. I, on the other hand, had slept fairly well considering that I was sitting up in a moving train\u2014but that was because I had dozed myself with medication… <\/p>\n

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