Wood You Believe?: From Lourdes to Limoges

We left Ceret very early on Tuesday morning (5am) to drive to Toulouse where Rachel was taking her departing flight back to the States. About a 3 hour drive. After saying good bye to her, we continued on to Lourdes, which was "only" another two hours away. At any rate, it's the closest we would be to Lourdes as far as I know for the rest of our time here, so I seized the opportunity.

We dropped off our overnight suitcase and back back at the hotel since we were too early to check in. Then we walked to the shrine, about 15 minutes away.

The basilica is actually three chruches, one on top of the other! When we arrived, we happened to walk into the church just as a Mass was beginning, celebrated by a bishop. It was for a particular pilgrim group; not one of the regularly scheduled masses.

After the Mass, we took a better look at the church and the beautiful mosaics of the mysteries of the rosary and the lavishly embellished altars below each one. We briefly stopped by the grotto. We lit a big candle and said a prayer for various intentions. We were quite hungry and tired by that time, so we left, got some dinner from a food truck thingie, and then went back to our hotel for a nap. I woke everyone up at 8:30pm to go back to the shrine for the evening candlight Marian procession. It is a procession of a statue of OL of Lourdes through the crowd. The crowd stays in one place. We prayed the rosary in multiple languages with additional songs and intentions thrown in, so that all took an hour.

We still hadn't seen everything at the shrine, so we went back the next morning. Everything we plan to do takes WAY longer than I anticipate. I didn't wake the kids at a specific time since we had slept so little the night before. I walked to a grocery store about 15 minutes away to buy us some food for breakfast. So by the time we were fed and packed up, it was already time to check out of the hotel! (11am!) We put our luggage in the car and walked back to the shrine to visit the other two churches, pray a rosary at the grotto; and attempt to go to confession. By 3pm, we had been waiting for confession for about 30 minutes already. I still had many people in front of me, and the kids were waiting for an English speaking priest to arrive. I decided to abandon the confession plan since we still hadn't eaten since breakfast and had 5 hours to drive to Limoges.

We bought some final souvenirs, some sandwhiches for dinner and left Lourdes around 4pm.

The drive to Limoges went pretty well. We had to make a couple potty stops. It was dark when we got to Limoges and it took me a little bit to figure out where our hotel actually was. My muscles have been quite tense and sore from all the driving and lugging of bags and suitcases, etc. Today was watch-French-cartoons-all-day day.

Tomorrow I will go to the school to fill out some paperwork they told me they needed. And I asked if the kids could get a little visit of the school too. So I told the kids I wanted to leave at 9am. That means we'll be doing well if we leave by 10am!

We're in a hotel until Monday when we will get to move into the apartment. We have two rooms here, which are separated by the length of a hallway. They each have a teeny tiny kitchen in them. I bought some ready to eat and very simple to prepare foods from Aldi.

I'm so glad I can shop at Aldi in Limoges! The products are almost entirely different than what we have in our stores in the States, but I'm still a fan and I know the prices are good! Even the grocery shopping carts are different in France. It was actually pretty difficult to drive my cart to my car today... the parking lot is uneven, and the wheels of the carts all turn in all directions, so that might be fine for maneuvers on a flat tiled floor, but it was incredibly difficult to control through the dips and hills of the parking lot, tiny as it was!

Our last meal en plein air in Ceret, the day before departure.

Au revoir, Ceret! There's the van with the luggage carrier repacked and ready to go.

The shrine at Lourdes.

Those are the kids in front of the barrier at the grotto.

The triple decker church as seen from behind. Built right on top of the grotto.

There's our big candle. We are praying for many of your intentions!

At the beginning of the Marian procession. Mary asked for people to process in her honor during the appartions. This candlelight rosary/service/procession is just during the months of July and August.

That is the lighted Mary statue that they carry all around the piaza, through the crowd, to the second level, etc. The picture isn't that goo. She looks better in real life, not all washed out by the light as it appears here.

A reliquary of St. Bernadette at Lourdes. Only some parts of her! Most of her body is in Nevers, where she lived as a religious sister. We hope to make it there eventually too!