Today was our first real day as pilgrims and we are off to a truly amazing start! We left our hotel before the sun was up hoping to beat the heat and to our surprise it was a cool 18 degrees and a very light rain was falling. Our morning was filled with two completely different types of hikes—both spiritual in their own way. The first involved St Bernadette and the second involved Mother Nature.
Lourdes is the city of miracles. At the Lourdes’ grotto (cave) between February 11 and July 16, 1858 the Virgin Mary appeared to young Bernadette 18 times. She specifically told Bernadette to tell the priests to build a chapel at this site. Our early morning path took us straight to the St. Bernadette Shrine-Complex which is build over the cave of her visions. Although we arrived before 6:00 there were already 4 different masses in process in four different locations including one at the opening the cave. The photos below will attest to the absolute beauty of the entire grounds including the cathedral and the number of patrons attending the masses. The underground chapel held 25,000 people and certainly was half full before the service began. It was particularly touching to see the number of hospital patients being pushed by nurses.
The second part of our morning hike took us along the river Gave de Pau and deep into Mother Nature. It was easy to get into the rhythm of the of the sound of the river and the birds’ songs. It was so beautiful that I audio recorded it just as I had part of the singing during the outdoor mass. The Pau river was fast moving, full of rapids and a deep aqua blue in colour. It may well be the most beautiful river that I have ever seen.
We disrupted our hike with a train and cab ride to the Pau airport to pick up a car rental as we were unable to hire a baggage transport service for the next eight days and will transport our own bags between stopping points. Once we had arrived at our end destination we unpacked our bags and stopped long enough to picnic in front of our cabin just as the sun broke through.
Our sunny afternoon hike took along the same river as the morning. We stopped to watch a raft forge a steep dam and then carried on to a small village called Betharram. We visited another ancient church called Our Lady of Betharram meaning our lady of a beautiful branch. A young girl fell into the river Gave and the Virgin Mary offered a branch and saved her. In the 16 century this site drew thousands of pilgrims. It is here that we met a very friendly priest who invited us back for evening vespers and dinner. All three of us had the opportunity to use all the French that we knew. The priest and his 8 friends were very patient affording us a very enjoyable experience. I must admit though, that it makes me smile thinking about the fact that the three of us, being the majority of the non Catholics of our generation in our family, end up in such situations.
A lovey 2 km walk back to our cabin in paradise ended our day with a total of 24 km and over 300 photos from which to choose.
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