Continuing our Exploration of Lourdes…

So after spending most part of the day in the Sanctuary, we decided to head out to the town square… to get a feel of authentic French cuisine and to soak in the French atmosphere. 

And we weren’t disappointed, the roads are so pretty… and walking along them aimlessly is kinda wonderful. 

Check out the lamp posts in the previous picture. Every freaking lamp has flowers sprouting out of it… whoever thought up this idea has a beautiful soul. Lamps that brighten up streets during the day, pretty cool…

A pretty fountain… ate lunch at a restaurant near this. Quaint little streets with flowering lamps on one side and a trickling fountain nearby…. beautiful times. 

I think my sister ordered this salad… So anyway, at every restaurant we went to, we would ask for the wi-fi password and most restaurants would give them out immediately. So we asked this young man who was waiting on us for the password, he said something quite fast like, ‘opencafeviffy’. And we were like what is this, we tried all the combinations of that… nothing worked, so we asked him again and he says the same thing: opencafeviffy. Finally my brother asked him if he could write it down, and this is what he wrote: open-cafe-wifi, and this was enough to start me and nam on one of our laughing spells. From that moment onwards, we too would pronounce wi-fi as viffy…  

I ordered the dish of the day… which was something to do with potatoes,and it was good… anything with potatoes is always good.

Foie gras, fattened liver of a duck or goose… authentic french cuisine.  

Creme Brulee for dessert… 

My brother ordered this dessert platter… miniature quantities of the different desserts… was quite nice.

So while walking, we came across this church…

Apparently this is the church Bernadette frequented when she was small… 

Pretty stained glass windows…

The baptismal font where Bernadette was baptised…

A rather lovely picture of a fish and the waves of the sea…

My brother lighting a candle….

At night we decided to watch the rosary procession from the upper level of the Rosary basilica… 

and it was wonderful, watching the sea of flickering candles slowly draw near …

We held our own candles and sang hymns (I think you have to sign into Instagram to view this link) inscribed on the sides of the candle paper cups….

It was a beautiful couple of days in Lourdes, we shopped a lot… this place is great for shopping! Lots of cute and pretty souvenirs to bring home for others. I don’t know if you remember my Christmas crib, but the angels spreading light were picked up at Lourdes. This whole trip was so much fun even before it started, there were a few moments of panic at the airport when we realised that one ticket was missing, only to realise much later that my brother had printed on both sides of the paper. In Lourdes while walking around with my sister and brother, I dropped my bags and tried to get away from them once… I almost peed in my pants because of them. They were hilarious, and I couldn’t control my laughter… I knew I had to get away from them and calm my self. So there I am trying to walk away and not listen to what they are saying, when they come running behind me, put their arms on my shoulder and Nam starts making the peeing sound (suuuu shuuuu suuu) while Vinod pushes my stomach in, squeezing my bladder… and all the while I am praying and running towards the hotel, trying to put some distance between us. After this, I always drank less water when I knew I would have to spend the whole day with them….

Had a wonderful and blessed time at Lourdes, here’s wishing all my readers (not to forget the spammers) peace, joy and hope all the days of your life…