As you may have noticed, I didn’t post yesterday (Saturday) as by the time we got settled it was too late and I was too tired. If I had posted I could have titled it “Oh What a Day We Had, Deuxieme Partie (Part Two)”. No, we didn’t have more bugs, we actually didn’t even get checked in, but I’ll save that story for later.
The day started out well enough with a relatively short drive from Bayonne to Pau to see the Chateau. We hadn’t planned to see anymore castles or chateaux, but this one had special historical interest. King Henry IV, the first of a long line of Bourbon kings of France, was born in the castle. He was also known as Henry the Great or Good King Henry. His great, great, grandson was Louis XVI lost his head in the French Revolution.
So, we thought this was interesting and since it wasn’t really out of the way, we stopped for a visit. Unlike the other castles we’ve visited, we could only see this one on a guided tour. Unfortunately, the only tours were in French, but we had an English guidebook and there were plaques in every room that had explanations in English, so we did okay.
The coolest part of the tour was to see the giant turtle shell that served as a cradle for the future King Henry IV.
After a challenging drive out of the Pau city center (construction, one-way streets and a demonstration march) we finally made it back to the toll road for the 45-minute drive to Lourdes, where we planned to spend two nights. This is where the day went off the rails. We stopped by our Airbnb flat to park the car and thought we’d go in to look at the flat. The listing said it was on the 6th floor with a lift. Great, we love lifts. Except the lift started on the 1st floor (versus the ground floor) and it ended at the 5th floor. So, we had one flight of stairs to climb at the bottom, and one flight at the top. OK, so I’m already not happy but thought we’d make the best of it. I opened the door and found the flat a mess from the last guest. To be fair it was only 1:30pm and check in wasn’t until 4pm so we closed up the house and decided to walk into town. Before we left, I messaged the host to say we’d be there between 4-5pm but got no response.
To be continued.
Once in town, we walked to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. Visiting the Sanctuary is the only reason anyone comes to Lourdes. This is the site where, in 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous had 18 visions of a lady who said she was the Immaculate Conception. Eventually the Catholic Church confirmed the authenticity of Bernadette’s visions. She became a nun, died in 1879 at the age of 35 and was canonized a saint in 1933.
The sanctuary includes several religious buildings and monuments around the grotto of Massabielle, the place where Bernadette’s visions occurred.
There are three basilicas at the sanctuary, and it turns out we missed one of them. The largest one is the Basilica of Pius X and is underground. I have no idea where the entrance was as I don’t remember seeing anything going down. Here’s a picture I got from Wikipedia.
The church on the ground level is the Basilica Notre-Dame of the Rosary.
This was as far as Peter went as getting to the upper basilica required either climbing a lot of stairs or walking up a very steep ramp, neither of which he wanted to tackle. So, I left him in the at the Rosary Basilica while I ventured out on my own.
The upper basilica is the Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.
The most important part of the Sanctuary is the grotto where Bernadette had her visions. The queue wasn’t too long so it only took about 5 minutes before we were able to get to that holy spot.
In 2018, we visited the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal where in 1917, three shepherd children saw the Virgin Mary. The site now has a large shrine, a modern church, and a small chapel. The chapel is built over the site of the apparition. What I liked about Lourdes, is that we saw the actual grotto where Bernadette had her visions, rather than just a building over the site like at Fatima. I imagine the grotto looks much like it did in 1859. About 4 million people/year visit this site and it was way more emotional than I expected. We’re so very glad we made the trip to see it.
Back to the Airbnb flat story. So, after visiting the Sanctuary, we stopped for a bite to eat and to kill time until 4pm check in. Food wasn’t great, but we made up for it with dessert.
After lunch, I messaged Armand saying we would arrive in 30 minutes….no response. When we got back to the flat, Peter waited in the car while I went back up to the apartment….still not ready. I messaged the host again with a deadline of how long we’d wait…no response. After about 30 minutes of waiting, we made a reservation on booking.com for a B&B about an hour away and left. We figured that as long as we had to go someplace else, we might as well head in the direction of Sunday’s drive. Problem solved, right?
Oh, wait…there’s more. We drive to our new 4-star B&B only to have GPS state “you have arrived”, in the middle of the street with nothing that resembles a B&B. I pulled over and checked email to find a message from the owner saying they couldn’t accommodate us as they were closed this weekend. While trying to contact booking.com, I received an email from them saying they’d found another place for us if we wanted it. By this time, it was after 6:30 and we were tired, so we accepted the new reservation and headed off. Eighteen minutes later, GPS says, “you have arrived” except we were on a dirt road in the middle of a herd of sheep. Well, not exactly in the middle, but they were on both sides of the road. I reloaded the GPS with the address and finally got to a house on the hill above the herd of sheep. Apparently, we rented a room in someone’s house. They were very happy to see us, which came as no surprise as we are literally in the middle of nowhere so I can’t imagine they get many guests. But we did have a pretty view of the mountains.
They are a lovely couple, and the room was clean and had an ensuite bath with a walk-in shower. So, it all worked out ok in the end. I’m getting too old for this.
To put a bow on the Lourdes Airbnb flat story, at about 8pm I finally heard from Armand who said his service provider forgot to clean the flat and he was happy to give us a refund. I told him we’d left town and expected a full refund for both nights. About 9:30pm he messaged me that the house was ready, and we could check in tomorrow. After a few back-and-forth messages that started to get ugly (him, and I quote, “you are causing me to lose a night of booking”, and me “please don’t blame me, talk with your service provider.”), we finally received a full refund for both nights. Seriously, I really am getting too old for this.
Today (Sunday) we left our room in the middle of nowhere around 9am for the hour drive to the walled city of Carcassonne. I had been here with mom in 2006 and thought Peter would enjoy it.
Carcassonne has been inhabited since Neolithic times. It was conquered by the Romans and the Visigoths. It was under Islamic rule for a while and the current fortress was built in the Middle Ages. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Our first stop, as always, was the Petite Train. This took us around the outside of the city walls. We would have never been able to walk around the whole place, so this was the only way to see it.
After the train ride, we had a leisurely lunch at one of the cafes in the old town, then walked around the cobbled streets for a little while.
By 3pm, Peter was getting tired, so we headed back to the car and the hotel, just about 100 meters up the road. They were so accommodating to our needs and gave us a ground floor wheelchair accessible room. Not only is it step free, but there are grab bars in both the toilet area and shower. Perfect for us.
Neither of us slept very well last night so I think it will be an early night tonight. Tomorrow is a drive day with a stop here in town to run a few errands, so I’m not sure there will be anything to post, but who knows. We may find something interesting along the way.
Oh my word!!! Your B&B story is why I would never take a trip as you are doing. I give you so much credit for handling all the travel plans and then handling everything, good and bad. I would have returned home by now crying………….but then you have all the wonderful memories you are blogging about! No guts, no Glory!
It has been a trying couple of days. I had a mini melt down in the car today trying to park at Carcassonne. I got trapped in the parking lane with no way to get into the lot (reservations only…who knew) and only two one-way roads (both going in the other direction) to get out. As I was trying to turn around in barely 3 feet of space, I backed into a small stone pillar I didn’t see. Thinking I smashed the car, the floodgates opened. I finally got out of the lane and into another parking lot. Luckily, no damage was done to the back of the car. I had only skimmed the top of the stone with the bottom of the plastic bumper. From the sound, though, I thought I destroyed the back of the car. It’s been coming for a while as watching Peter struggle so hard has been very difficult. But I’m good now and look forward to our next adventure.
You are doing so well with so much going on, so make sure you give yourself permission to have those “moments” to release it all! I am looking forward to reading about your next adventure!
Thanks for your support. I think things will be a little better now as we bought Peter a wheelchair yesterday. He’s been struggling so much with walking that I told him that it was either a chair or a ticket home. He chose the chair. It’s one that has small wheels in the back instead of the big ones so it’s light enough for me to lift and put into the car. We’ll only use it when we take trains for day trips or when we think there will be a lot of walking. Now I have one less thing to worry about. Of course, it meant I had to slim down our luggage even more as I couldn’t handle 2 suitcases, 2 backpacks, Peter and a WC. We’re down to the bare minimum in clothes. I’ve always been a light packer, but this is something even for me. I shipped the small roll aboard suitcase filled with clothes back to Renee. As much as we are enjoying our adventures and look forward to upcoming weeks, I’ll be glad to get him home where I know help is just a phone call away. We’re going to have to look at changes we need to make to the house (e.g. grab bars, bed rails, etc.) to make life easier for him. But that’s a worry for another day. Today it’s off to Normandy. Love to all….