A little bit of Ireland in Lourdes

After lunch today, Fr Briggs and I paid a visit to the parish Church to say the prescribed prayers at the font where St Bernadette was baptised. Next to the Church is a statue of my hero, Mgr Peyramale so I took the opportunity of getting a photo of Fr Briggs standing next to the great man.

Near to the Domaine, there are wheelchair lanes painted in the roads. These have been extended this year and there is a new one painted just outside our hotel.

The wheelchair lanes are used by conventional wheelchairs but also by the odd bath chairs that are a feature of Lourdes. Here you can see something of Lourdes outside the Domaine with its shops and restaurants catering for the 6-8 million people who visit each year between April and October:

This afternoon, we did the Stations of the Cross. I went with the children and the confidently mobile up the Espelugues Hill while Fr Briggs led the stations in the new Way of the Cross in the prairie opposite the grotto.

On the way down from the high Stations, there is a celtic cross erected by Irish pilgrims. It seemed like a good place to have a photograph:

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