After an early and big cycling breakfast in our quirky little apartment on the third floor of a house, it was time to saddle up and hit the road again! (We had a magnificent view of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre out of our window - more than made up for the hassle of getting our stuff up and down a narrow staircase!) The early part of the ride was again on minor roads through rolling hills, giving us sweeping views of the farms, forests and mountains, threaded with flowing creeks and rivers. This also meant rough, narrow roads and the occasional gravel patches. Not so bad when in the lowest gear and going up, but not so good when going down steep inclines, not knowing if there are cows on the road, cars or tractors coming the other way! At a crossing, appropriately near a hospital located right up in the high country above Bagneres, we spotted an interesting turn-off After 15 km, we crossed the main road heading to Lourdes from Bagneres, and as it seemed quiet, we abandoned the original planned route and took this smooth and fast road into Lourdes. What an amazing place! Today Lourdes has a population of around 15,000, but it is able to take in some 5,000,000 pilgrims and tourists every season. With about 270 hotels, Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels per square kilometer in France after Paris! We came into the town from the east, and so was gradually exposed to the centre of the pilgrimage site, which on our visit was well under capacity (we got there about 1000, and stayed until about 1200). Surrounding the Sanctuary site (an enormous 58 hectares) is a security fence, with limited entrances (entry is free by the way). Around these entrances is clustered the souvenir shops selling all kinds of mementos - glow in the dark Virgin Marys, candles by the ton, posters, paintings, rosary beads, etc etc! Still dominating the town is a fortress - now a museum - which has been occupied on and off since Roman times. For 46 years, up until 778, Lourdes was possessed by Muslims of Al-Andalus. However, during the 8th century, Lourdes and its fortress became the focus of skirmishes between Mirat, the Muslim local leader, and Charlemagne, King of the Franks. Up until 1858, Lourdes was a quiet, modest, county town with a population of only some 4,000 inhabitants. The castle was occupied by an infantry garrison. The town was a place people passed through on their way to the waters at Barèges, Cauterets, Luz-Saint-Sauveur and Bagnères-de-Bigorre, and for the first mountaineers on their way to Gavarnie. The sanctuary has 3 churches and the famous grotto where on 11 February 1858, a 14-year-old local girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in the remote Grotto of Massabielle. This lady later identified herself as "the Immaculate Conception" and the faithful believe her to be the Blessed Virgin Mary. The lady appeared 18 times, and by 1859 thousands of pilgrims were visiting Lourdes. A statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was erected at the site in 1864. At the time of the apparitions, the grotto was on common land which was used by the villagers variously for pasturing animals, collecting firewood and as a garbage dump, and it possessed a reputation for being an unpleasant place(!) If they could only see it now! To get the full experience we lined up to go into the grotto itself, and touched the stones worn smooth by the estimated 200 million visitors prior to us! In the line up were some people very intensely moved by the whole experience. And looking around what was a small village rubbish dump 150 years ago, you have proof that faith does move mountains! We walked back through the underground cathedral built in 1958 - this was a strange place, more like a lair for a Bond villain, or even dare I say it, like David Walsh’s MONA in Hobart, than a church despite the large and small images of saints around the inside. The Basilica was designed by the architect Pierre Vago. The nave is oval, 191 metres (627 ft) long and 61 metres (200 ft) wide, and slopes gently upwards from the centre, where the sanctuary is situated on a raised platform. The ceiling is low, at only 10 metres (33 ft) high, and is supported by 58 pre-stressed concrete pillars which meet 29 concrete beams which cross the ceiling, giving it the impression of an upturned ship. This design creates a very large open space, of 12,000 square metres (130,000 sq ft), for maximum visibility from any part of the nave. When full it can accommodate up to 25,000 worshippers. After our visit, it was time to move on in the now quite hot day. Lunch in the forest of Lourdes with the river nearby, then on through to Pau. On the way we passed a group of sportifs cyclists. It appears the etiquette is for the lady cyclists to move away from the males, and drop their strides and do a wee on the side of the road in full view of the passing traffic! Apart from that surprise, we saw our second snake crossing the road.