NOTRE-DAME-DE-LOURDES SHRINE
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A grotto, a shepherdess, apparitions... This is the story of a great Marian pilgrimage site known throughout the world.
This site is truly unique. It's not a retreat in the strict sense of the word, but rather a place of pilgrimage, faith, mission and international gathering. Here, the city's spiritual and religious spaces are known as the Sanctuaires Notre-Dame de Lourdes. This 52-hectare private territory surrounds the grotto of Massabielle, where the Virgin is said to have appeared to Bernadette Soubirous eighteen times in 1858. Nestled in a loop of the tumultuous Gave, at the foot of the upper town and its castle, the sanctuaries are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, although the group pilgrimage season is concentrated from April to October. Lourdes is atmospheric. The stores, lined up at the edge of the sanctuaries, overflow onto the sidewalks with medals for a few euros, statuettes of the Virgin, rosaries, key-ring holders, pretty little bottles to fill with holy water... Converging on the sanctuary gates, you watch or mingle with the procession of groups, behind their pilgrimage banners, and the parade of volunteer hospitaliers, in their uniforms with colorful headdresses (at least for the women) pushing the sick in those typical Lourdes blue carts. You'll remember the good-natured, cosmopolitan atmosphere, like an atypical interlude in an age of standardization. With almost 200 hotels and 33,000 beds, Lourdes is France's second-largest hotel town.
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