Day 8 (Lourdes to Tours):
The final day! Booo...
So for the first time all trip, I was able to sleep in (until 9, when I was awakened by the housekeeper attempting to get into the room and then succeeding in getting her key stuck in the door, rather amusing since this was the only key owned by the hotel that has access to all the rooms). The plan today was to finally head up into some mountains - while MT was off doing Catholic things with some Spanish-speaking priests, Hansky and I took a "funiculaire" (cable car) up 1000 feet to Pic du Jer, where we hiked around a bit and got some great views of Lourdes down below, as well as some of the close foothills. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and the higher Pyrenees to the south were barely visible. Booo...I guess I'll just have to come back. :)
Once back in town, we killed time for several hours while we waited for MT by eating a slow lunch, wandering the holy site area again, and getting some work done/watching some crazy YouTube videos on my computer at the hotel lobby. Around 4:15, the three of us trekked up the hill back to the train station, where finally I caught a glimpse of the wonderful Pyrenees through the clouds!
Worst news of the day: so I managed to get a long, thick string of fabric (from a rug in the hotel) stuck in the wheel of my rolling suitcase, rendering the rolling function useless and adding about twice as much friction. What. A. Pain.
The train ride home was on the awesome high-speed TGV, which still took 5 hours but was direct and rather painless. Again, I worked my magic and managed to "forget" to fill out my calendar for the Eurail Pass and when the conductor came by to check, he made no comment. So now I have TWO free days to use some other day for unlimited train travel! Woo-hoo!
And so this trip ended just like all others do...planning the next one. Where will I go next???!! Well, Lausanne, Switzerland in two weeks with MT (I booked this a while ago). What else? Well, maybe I should start thinking about this whole school thing again, as we start leg 2 of classes tomorrow at the Institute!
Hope you enjoyed the lengthy story of our 8-day mega-trip. A lovely time overall and I am so glad to have been able to see so much of France and Italy, especially by train, which is great.
So long for now!
-Andrew
Showing posts with label Lourdes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lourdes. Show all posts
Monday, July 5, 2010
Mega-Vacation Day 7 - Nice to Lourdes, France
Day 7 (Nice to Lourdes):
Well, I felt much better today – my sty has all but disappeared, my sunburn is turning to a nice sun tan, and I didn’t add to my considerably total of mosquito bites. We began travelling very early in the morning – a 4:30 wake-up call for 5:50 train from Nice to Marseille, the second largest city in France. We arrived on schedule and got some coffee/orange juice in the city near the train station, which is located on a hill with a lovely view of the city. Marseille is interesting – the French accent is nearly incomprehensible, totally different from Parisian style with considerable Arabic influence (Marseille has the largest number of Arab immigrants). Overall, good impressions of the town, and perhaps I will return another time.
Marseille to Toulouse was a bit more difficult. When we found our train, we found that we had reservations on a car that didn’t exist. Fortunately, we were not the only ones, and after an hour of asking the SNCF guys about the problem, they added 7 new cars to the train (kinda cool). We got on and got moving an hour late, but fortunately we had a significant layover in Toulouse which simply got cut down from 2 hours to only 1. It was a bit of bummer because I would have liked to explore a bit of this nice city.
Well, we didn’t leave Toulouse totally unscathed – we had an unfortunate run-in with three moronic, scantily-clad local hobos who decided to give us a hard time. Coming back from lunch, one guy asked me for money and he immediately recognized that I was not French. I lied when we asked me if I spoke English and walked past and into a nearby supermarket. Stupidly, I left Hansky alone, and one of the guys weirdly broke off the luggage tag off of my bag that Hansky was using for the trip, only to have it returned to me in the market 5 minutes by the moron-leader himself. Close call, but the score is as follows: intelligent, sarcastic travelers: 1; idiotic, uneducated, toothless locals: 0.
The trip from Toulouse to Lourdes went rather smoothly, and we arrived at our hotel after a lengthy walk up and down hilly streets around 7:30.
Lourdes is a quaint little town tucked into the foothills of the Pyrenees famous for being a Catholic pilgrimage site. Story has it that in the 1850s, the Virgin Mary appeared many times in a grotto in Lourdes to a young girl (Saint Bernadette) and told her to build a church on that spot. Well, at least I believe that’s right. In addition, the grotto is now famous because its water supposedly holds healing powers for ailments – so people come bearing gallons upon gallons of empty cartons and fill them up (if nothing else, the water here was amazingly fresh and tasty, as it came straight out of a spring). Anyway, Lourdes is ridiculously packed with Catholic tourists from all over the world, making it the 2nd most visited city in all of France (behind Paris).
As a Catholic, I found the story interesting – but to be honest, I was much more interested in the mountainous scenery. While MT and Hansky marveled at the pilgrimage sites, I gazed up at the mountains. :)
Our hotel was incredibly quaint, with an all-wooden staircase and small cottage-like room, a nice contrast to the tourist shops set up everywhere selling little water bottles and Catholic-related trinkets. We walked down to the grotto and the nice church on the side of a mountain before dinner – I explored a bit on my own as Hansky and MT prayed at the grotto. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and thus I was unable to see the true, snow-capped Pyrenees. :)
We ate Italian food for dinner and returned to the grotto for a mass in French – it was an interesting experience to see all the people praying in their respective languages (behind French, Italian was by far the most popular). Visiting the holy sites was just that…interesting. Mind-blowing and awe-inspiring? Well, maybe not for me…but that is another story.
Well, I felt much better today – my sty has all but disappeared, my sunburn is turning to a nice sun tan, and I didn’t add to my considerably total of mosquito bites. We began travelling very early in the morning – a 4:30 wake-up call for 5:50 train from Nice to Marseille, the second largest city in France. We arrived on schedule and got some coffee/orange juice in the city near the train station, which is located on a hill with a lovely view of the city. Marseille is interesting – the French accent is nearly incomprehensible, totally different from Parisian style with considerable Arabic influence (Marseille has the largest number of Arab immigrants). Overall, good impressions of the town, and perhaps I will return another time.
Marseille to Toulouse was a bit more difficult. When we found our train, we found that we had reservations on a car that didn’t exist. Fortunately, we were not the only ones, and after an hour of asking the SNCF guys about the problem, they added 7 new cars to the train (kinda cool). We got on and got moving an hour late, but fortunately we had a significant layover in Toulouse which simply got cut down from 2 hours to only 1. It was a bit of bummer because I would have liked to explore a bit of this nice city.
Well, we didn’t leave Toulouse totally unscathed – we had an unfortunate run-in with three moronic, scantily-clad local hobos who decided to give us a hard time. Coming back from lunch, one guy asked me for money and he immediately recognized that I was not French. I lied when we asked me if I spoke English and walked past and into a nearby supermarket. Stupidly, I left Hansky alone, and one of the guys weirdly broke off the luggage tag off of my bag that Hansky was using for the trip, only to have it returned to me in the market 5 minutes by the moron-leader himself. Close call, but the score is as follows: intelligent, sarcastic travelers: 1; idiotic, uneducated, toothless locals: 0.
The trip from Toulouse to Lourdes went rather smoothly, and we arrived at our hotel after a lengthy walk up and down hilly streets around 7:30.
Lourdes is a quaint little town tucked into the foothills of the Pyrenees famous for being a Catholic pilgrimage site. Story has it that in the 1850s, the Virgin Mary appeared many times in a grotto in Lourdes to a young girl (Saint Bernadette) and told her to build a church on that spot. Well, at least I believe that’s right. In addition, the grotto is now famous because its water supposedly holds healing powers for ailments – so people come bearing gallons upon gallons of empty cartons and fill them up (if nothing else, the water here was amazingly fresh and tasty, as it came straight out of a spring). Anyway, Lourdes is ridiculously packed with Catholic tourists from all over the world, making it the 2nd most visited city in all of France (behind Paris).
As a Catholic, I found the story interesting – but to be honest, I was much more interested in the mountainous scenery. While MT and Hansky marveled at the pilgrimage sites, I gazed up at the mountains. :)
Our hotel was incredibly quaint, with an all-wooden staircase and small cottage-like room, a nice contrast to the tourist shops set up everywhere selling little water bottles and Catholic-related trinkets. We walked down to the grotto and the nice church on the side of a mountain before dinner – I explored a bit on my own as Hansky and MT prayed at the grotto. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and thus I was unable to see the true, snow-capped Pyrenees. :)
We ate Italian food for dinner and returned to the grotto for a mass in French – it was an interesting experience to see all the people praying in their respective languages (behind French, Italian was by far the most popular). Visiting the holy sites was just that…interesting. Mind-blowing and awe-inspiring? Well, maybe not for me…but that is another story.
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