Hooray! Hooray! We got to sleep in today! It was an 8:00 AM start to the day, which
gave us a little more time to rest up.
It's surprising how tired one can get just riding in a coach. The now
standard "Have your bags out by X" is ingrained in us - so we are
ready to go at the time allotted and place our bags in the hallway to be picked
up and loaded on the coach for us. I
thought that was going to be a pain (in the you know what), but actually it
just means that you have to be a little bit organized in the evening before you
turn in. Pick your clothes, make sure
that you only take out stuff that you need and pack the stuff that you want on
the coach with you in your small carry-on.
Voila! Oh, and always make sure
that you put one of your shoes that you will be using the next day in the safe
(so that you don’t leave without the safe’s contents). Thanks to Kassie for that little nugget.
Today is a reasonable travel day – I think we are only
driving for about 4 or 5 hours. We are
leaving Bordeaux and heading to Biarritz and then on to Lourdes (all still in
France). Biarritz is a city on the Bay
of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in southwestern France, about 35 kilometres
from the border with Spain. It is a luxurious seaside tourist destination known
for the Hôtel du Palais (originally built for the Empress Eugénie around 1855),
its casinos and its surfing culture. We
stopped in here for lunch so we had 1 hour and 15 minutes to check out some of
the sights on our own (after being shown the sights by driving about the city
on the coach). I have to tell you; I
don’t know how our driver is able to navigate the ultra-narrow streets that we
are driving on. I’d be a little
uncertain if I was pedaling a BIKE down the roads that he pilots the bus
around!
Before taking us to the central part of the city and
dropping us off – they took us to the lighthouse on the cliff to get a glimpse
of the magnificent beach area below.
They also seem to know where all the free toilets are in the places we
are going – so it was a great opportunity to take advantage of those as
well.
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| Biarritz France |
Laureen and I jumped out and looked for a place to eat right
away. We found a nice little spot, just
a short walk from where they dropped us off.
Laureen had a salad (and kindly deposited all of the olives on my
plate), and I had a burger with fries.
I’m not sure if it was the Southern France atmosphere – or what – but
the French fries that I had today were the best French fries that I have EVER
HAD. McD’s fries taste like those warmed
over McCain fries that one can get at home compared to these ones. My French has seriously decayed over time, so
thankfully the waiter spoke perfect English.
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| The Best Fries on the Planet! |
After lunch we used Google Maps to find a shoe store as
Laureen’s long time Sketcher flip-flops were breaking at the toe strap. We found a place, and the lady (once again)
thankfully spoke English. We found out
later that her son was working in Quebec City as a Pilot. It’s really a small world. Laureen found herself a nice replacement pair
of shoes so she took those and we left the Sketchers to be disposed of. I think Laureen did a small ceremony before
she was able to let her Sketchers go…
These two things basically used up all of our time so we
headed back to the coach and boarded it for Lourdes. On the bus, Kassie played a game with the
group playing short clips of TV song themes and having us write down what we
thought they were. There were 17 of them
and we got 10 correct. Steve and
Margaret were the winners with 14. Not
sure what they won; possibly a bottle of wine.
On this part of the trip we also were to finalize all of the
optional excursions that we want to do in the locations we will be going. Kassie went over them all once again and we
chose the ones that we felt we wanted to do.
We picked quite a few as they do an awesome job of organizing it for
us. Of course, we didn’t do all of them
so Alf and I were looking to find a time when we could potentially Golf. The one time that looks like it might work is
when we are in Lucerne, Switzerland. I
mentioned it to Kassie and she offered to look into organizing it for us. Might be able to put together a
foursome.
We arrived in Lourdes and checked into the hotel. It is very reasonable for Europe, as have all
the rooms been. We had about 45 minutes
to get settled and then we could meet Kassie in the lobby to have her take us
for the sites of the chapel, monuments and the famous healing water
spring.
Lourdes water is water which flows from a spring in the
Grotto of Massabielle in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France. The
location of the spring was described to Bernadette Soubirous by a vision she
had of the Virgin Mary on 25 February 1858. Bernadette reportedly had these
visions experiences 18 times. At one point
the vision told her to dig on the spot where she saw the vision. She did and a spring came forth. Since that
time many thousands of pilgrims to Lourdes have followed the instruction of the
Virgin Mary which was to "drink at the spring and bathe in it".
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| The Cathedral on the site of the Lourdes Water Spring |
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| Statue shows where the visions were located. The rock below if touched is seen as a blessing. |
Kassie mentioned that the Vatican has followed up and
documented 69 separate situations of what is described as miraculous healing of
people who drank/bathed in the water.
Other reports (not documented) have indicated that thousands of people
have experienced healings. It was
interesting to walk through the area and see all of the people. Kassie mentioned that 25000 people a day
visit the site and that this attraction draws as many visitors as the Eiffel
Tower. We actually saw many volunteers
pushing people in wheel chairs and the like to help them get to the bathing
area for the Lourdes water.
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| A view to the entry of one of the Cathedrals |
It rained for the first time on us while we were walking to
the site – which is about a 10-minute walk from our hotel. Thankfully it stopped raining and we could
walk around and take a few pictures of the different cathedral areas.
Dinner was at 7:30 PM in the hotel – another fantastic 3
course meal, wine included. Laureen and
I had a bit of fun with the Aussies who were sitting at our table by mentioning
to them that they have something equivalent of the Canadian “Eh” in their
speech. They all use the work “Yeh”,
multiple times in their sentences. When
we pointed it out to them, Kay became very conscious of it and was laughing
every time she would say it. She figured
that she would wake up in the middle of the night laughing about it.
Tomorrow is an early morning: 6:45 AM bags out and
breakfast, 7:45 AM departure for Madrid, Spain.
Curt & Laureen in Lourdes, France.
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