Day Thirty One: Lourdes to Bayonne: Message of Compassion
For anyone not familiar with the story of Bernadette Soubirous and the genesis of the phenomenon of Lourdes, there was a small series of dioramas near the entrance of the Sanctuary/Basilica complex. Let's start with that:
The Boly Mill, where Bernadette was born in 1844. She lived here for 10 years.
So basically, Bernadette a resident of Lourdes in 1858, saw a vision in a grotto near the Gave river that runs through town. These visions were repeated 18 times. At some point the vision identified itself as the Virgin Mary. Bernadette was able to convince authorities about what she had seen, and that a chapel needed to be built on the site. The thing took off, and today among other things the town has more hotels than Paris!
Before going into more details of what we saw, and before poking fun at some of the excesses, we must say that there were two very moving components to the whole thing. First is the idea and the demonstration of compassion for the infirm. Lourdes had very many people around in wheelchairs. They were cherished, placed up front, shepherded about by people front and back, carefully kept warm. Next is the idea of internationalism. People come here from all over the world. Many signs are in six languages. Many signs are in Sri Lankan. During a time in the USA and in France and Germany when these ideas are under attack, Lourdes is an enduring beacon.
And oh, despite a long walk on two canes through the sanctuary, Dodie says her knees feel better.
So where to begin? Coming here by train made it hard to have a feel for which geographic/climate zone we are really in. One hint came by looking out our window this morning - snow on the hills. So that would be snow and hills. On the other hand, we spotted a map that showed we are already west of the real Pyrenees. We are also just on the north edge of a region of foothills towns. No doubt this is an interesting area, and one that we are not at all aquainted with. The Gave river that runs through Lourdes seems to link the region, and we picked up a pamphlet generally calling the area Hautes-Pyrenees Pays Vallees des Gaves.
For us, this mountain aspect of the town may remain a mystery, something to return to. Today we descended (physically, not spiritually) through the fascinating back to back religious souvenir shops and hotels, to the Sanctuary and Basilica built beside/atop the famous grotto.
The photos below, with their captions, take you through the souvenir shops, the Basilica area, and back up through the souvenir shops. It was really a fabulous "ride" (bikes not allowed at the Basilica), making us glad that we diverted our route a bit to get here.
Tourists on the march down to the Basilica. We would have had to get up at 5:30 to get close to the grotto.
Candles are provided for suggested offerings. The economist in me could not help noticing that if the euro suggestion is 2.50, then the US dollar and Swiss Franc amounts should be around 2.70. Maybe the Americans and Swiss should be good to pay in excess. The British should pay 2.10 pounds.
The spot where you can fill your water container in bulk. The flow rate of the spring is 122,000 litres a day. There is a reservoir of 450,000 litres. This is needed, because on a day in mid-August there could be 50,000 people here!
Because today is my birthday, usual begging for souvenirs is being received more favourably by Dodie. She will be charged with finding a place on the bikes for them, and then mailing them home.
The next step in our program to get to and on with the Camino was to hop the train to Bayonne, which is near but not quite on the Atlantic (that honour goes to the next town over, Biarritz). From Bayonne we can bounce back inland and up to St. Jean Pied de Port. That is the last town in France before the Camino Frances in Spain.
There was a large St Jacques welcome centre at Lourdes. Here a staffer helps check out whether the roads would be ok for us from Bayonne to St Jean. Verdict: no.
Train information had told us that we needed to get on the 14:18 to Bayonne, in order to have no changes of train and to be on a train that would take our bikes. But that was yesterday. Today they insisted that we had to take a TGV at 14:38 and pay 10 euros per bike extra. So we dutifully watched the 14:18, with its clearly marked bike car go by, and fought our steeds onto the TGV. The TGV immediately announced a delay of 15 minutes, that grew to 30 minutes. So that would mean we missed our connection at Dax, where the leeway was 12 minutes!
We had already paid for our hotel in Bayonne, it looked like we would lose that, lose 20 euros on bike fees and have to find a place to stay in Dax. We got off at Dax about 30 minutes after our connecting train had left. But Dodie jumped a train employee to ask now what? The lady had a paper in her hand, looked down, and said a train for Bayonne leaves in 3 minutes. Panic stations - down the stairs, up the stairs, realize there is an elevator, get on the wrong elevator, and so forth.
We rushed our bikes onto the train, whew. Immediately a conductor said we were in the wrong car and shoudl descend and move down several cars. This was not a good time to be a train employee telling us- anything! Dodie suddenly stopped speaking French and declared she wasn't going nowhere for nobody. However this particular train man was kind and reasonable. He held the train and personally guided us to the better car. Good one. He also fired up his smartphone and displayed the list of stations coming up before Bayonne. He also took my pen and wrote down the name of the stop before the last. Finally he had a warm reaction when I pointed out he was writing with my new souvenir of Lourdes pen!
Out of the station at Bayonne, we had the name and address of the hotel we had booked, but no good map or idea where it was. So first I turned on the tablet to use Google Maps - the brute force method. But quickly Dodie did find our map - also a strong method. But finally I looked up - we were standing in front of it!
As is common, the proprietor had us store the bikes sort of in the kitchen or nearby storage room. We dropped out bags in our room and set off for a super quick survey of the town. We already had an idea of what to see and expect, from having read Rick Steves' guide. The town is split into three sections by a main river, the main river, the Adour, and the smaller Nive. The sections are called Saint Esprit, Grand Bayonne, and Petit Bayonne. Grand Bayonne is (naturally) the bigger bit, and it boasts the location of the cathedral.
We crossed the cold and windy Pont St Esprit and entered Grand Bayonne. It was after 6, so many things were legitimately closed. However the city seemed to feature rather large and to me unfriendly six story buildings, and even all the restaurants, such as they were, were closing for the day. Hey, I thought French only start to dine at 7:30. Go figure.
We did find some fun in Grand Bayonne, though. One of the town's big claims to fame is chocolate. The story goes that Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th century settled in Saint Esprit and started the chocolate industry. The best chocolate in town, says Rick, is from Daranatz, which was founded in 1890. They were still open! We bought two bars. I got the equivalent of Captain Crunch - good, but then it always is. Dodie, however, got the Piment d'Espelette. Piment d'Espelette is a red pepper specific to a nearby Basque town.
The bars were 5 euros each, which is basically triple price. But they were the cheapest thing, peer pound, in the shop.
Next door was Cazenave chocolate, founded in 1854, so making Daranatz look like johhny come latelys. They were also open, but we had already blown our purse next door.
We tried to absorb a little bit of Basque culture - looking at the buildings, the Basque language on signs, and Basque food products in the grocery, but heads still spinning from Lourdes and with no time left in the day, we really could not do a proper Grampies job on it. And tomorrow, maybe really really early, we will hop a bus back tot he mountains to join the pilgrims.
(Actually, there are already lots of pilgrims to be seen around here. Further, the Basque religious practices have been heavily influenced by St Jacques pilgrims who have been passing through here for centuries. The whole St Jacques thing, already big in France and through Europe is becoming a very big deal as the various routes converge and get ready to shoot across northern Spain.)
