Our group had agreed to meet at the lobby twenty minutes after we concluded our meal. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes was a five-minute walk from our hotel, according to our Tour Director. We were going to join the Torchlight Marian Procession scheduled at 9:00 p.m. It was a good thing I went with him. There were others that left the hotel earlier and others that left after us. I wouldn’t have known the “short-cut,” if it weren’t for him. He led us to the back alley wher

As we got closer to Lourdes, we saw more and more of the Pyrenees. Lourdes is a small market town lying on the foothills of this mountain range. It rises at an elevation of 1,380 feet and is overlooked from the south by the Pyrenean peaks of Aneto, Montaigu, and Vignemale, while around it are three summits reaching up to 3,280 feet – the Béout, the Petit Jer, and the Grand Jer. It’s my kind of place…high elevation with mountains all around. I also like the climate which is mi

I knew we had crossed the border to France when I saw road signs written solely in French. Our Tour Director finally started telling us about our next destination - Lourdes, the location of the famous Catholic pilgrimage site, Sanctuaires Notre-Dame de Lourdes and the Grotto of the Apparitions. During the past few days, we had been wondering if we would be able to go. This was in the summer of 2013, when heavy flooding swept through the towns and villages in the Pyrenees and