Lourdes

So after a nice breakfast in Burgos we started on our way to Lourdes. 

Fields of gold in France 

Driving through France was fun, the scenery is amazing like this field of bundled up hay. 

Rugged mountains

The castle of Lourdes in the center.

Our quaint room in Lourdes

As soon as we reached the room we had to walk to the Lourdes shrine for mass. We had mass in this chapel directly above the grotto.

River Gave, near the shrine

The massive shrine 

The site of the apparitions

The source of the water that Bernadette apparently dug up from the ground

By 5 pm the Eucharistic procession started, and nuns were walking with this blue ribbons contraption.

The Eucharistic procession

The procession ended in this massive underground church  

It started raining heavily by the time the procession got over and it was nice walking in the rains near this roaring river to a restaurant for Indian food at a Sri Lankan restaurant. There was the usual rosary procession at 9pm, but it was raining then too and everybody was huddled under their umbrellas. You can check out the candlelight rosary procession in this old post. It was a tiring and cold day, but incredibly beautiful too… I think it’s the location of Lourdes. The mountains and the river nearby makes everything seem surreal. 

Woke up early the next day and had mass in this beautiful chapel.

The view from the upper level of the shrine

After this we had breakfast in the hotel and then started on our drive to Paris.