June 8th: Lourdes

Lourdes was a suitable stopping point en route to the Dordogne, and we stayed an extra day to look around. As everybody knows, it is a major pilgrimage site, with 6 million visitors a year and more hotels than any other city in France apart from Paris.

The church in the photo is built above the grotto, the scene of Bernadette’s visions in 1858 and, with the grotto, is the focus for the pilgrims who mainly come seeking a cure. The grotto itself is shown in the next photo.

The church is fronted by a large square, then some gardens, and then the town. We were expecting these parts near the church and grotto to be full of stalls, shops and peddlers, maybe even “official” gift shops run by the Church, capitalising on the religious souvenirs people feel obliged to buy to take home. This, and lots of snacks and ice creams. But in all these areas controlled by the Church there was no commercialisation whatsoever; quite the opposite from the circus we thought might prevail. The photo shows the church and square empty except for people.

The town itself makes up for the Church’s lack of business exploitation with numerous shops plying overpriced religious souvenirs, and eateries of all types. It is a well-oiled machine for fleecing the visitor, reminiscent of Marrakech..

This is another and newer part of the pilgrim package: a subterranean church, near the original church, built to cope with the huge numbers that come here. It can seat 20,000 people, and the photo shows just the right-hand half. The concrete ribs give the sensation of sitting in an enormous fish. So now we know what Jonah felt like in his whale. The outer ring of the building, a kind of cloister, has some expressive modern art (1985) made of glass, all by the same artist, as example below.

We were impressed by the manner in which all the officials efficiently and sensitively organised the pilgrims. This was especially important for the many who were old or ill and in wheel chairs with carers. All this was for no charge, either for the officials’ services or entry into the various religious venues. Being in the presence of such a great volume of people’s spiritual aspirations was quite a moving experience.

We might have stayed another day, but the campsite was inundated with flies that seemed to be able to get into the caravan through the smallest gap, including the fly screens. We despatched 73 in the ‘van on our return from town, and weren’t keen to deal with another plague the following day.