The Feast Day of St. Bernadette! We got up early so we could eat breakfast and make it to the 10am French Mass in the underground church.
View from the balcony in the morning. No rain!
We made our way through town and discovered that- lo and behold- all the shops were open! I chuckled.
The entrance to the underground church. I was beginning to feel like we were entering a doomsday shelter.
There was a long and winding path down into the main part of the church. Posters of saints hung from the ceiling.
We didn’t want to stand next to strangers throughout the Mass, so we stood behind all the pews. I got a great look at all the priests as they lined up for the procession. They must have come from a bunch of different parishes, everyone wore a different white robe.
A view of the church after Mass. The service was done in five languages- French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish. The music was sooo slow! We got to have the Eucharist at the back of the church.
Absolutely frozen after an hour of standing in the basement, we finally escaped to the above ground. We found the gift shop and scoped out what we’d be interested in buying there in case we couldn’t find anything in town.
We walked downtown for a quick lunch. Look at this lovely fountain we passed!
This was a really fun bar name “les cent culottes” sounds like the French revolutionary group the “sans culottes.”
We ate lunch outside Les Halles de Lourdes. We got sandwiches that were supposed to have steak inside, but the French consider hamburger patties to be steak.
After lunch we stood on the corner and survived a near miss when a drive skirted around the corner and took out this poll. He just kept going like nothing happened!
We made out way towards the museum in town, using the back streets. I loved this little house that we passed!
The Musée Pyrénéen. We had the pleasure of meeting a local woman who was decently inebriated on our way up to the museum. She was walking pretty close to us so I glanced at her. She started mumbling and then yelling at me! She demanded to know why I looked at her and when we ignored her, she continued yelling as she walked down the street.
Moving on from that bizarro experience, we walked down a new street toward the basilica. We saw this lovely convent! As the other folks shopped, I moseyed around and took some pictures. A little nun nodded in my direction.
The entire area on this side of the river looked like is was right out of the 50s. I loved it!
I loved this old church. It looks like they preform theatre inside now.
A snazzy hotel!
We finally arrived back at the basilica and we were determined to get some grotto water and burn our candles. Here’s me with a candle definitely meant for the procession through the city and not for burning at the grotto.
We got our water and crossed the river to burn our candles. Here’s a collection of some that were already set ablaze.
You can spend a lot on candles here if you really want to! As we were leaving we saw someone drag in a 500 euro one on a dolly.
Here’s a view of the basilica from across the river!
As we headed back to the apartment for the night, we happened across a hotel district. Found Corona!
The old bridge used to be the only one in the city. It is the one that St. Bernadette took to the grotto every day.
Check out the Old Parish Church.
I love this spooky little house we passed on our way back to the apartment!
We were all tired and freezing by the end of the day. Everyone settled in for an afternoon nap. When it was finally time for dinner, we made pasta and toasted cheese bread. There was wine and music for the rest of the evening.
Mary-Est-En-France 
That underground church was interesting! So many beautiful things to see there. Thanks for sharing.
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It was really neat! The Mass is usually held in the grotto at 10am, but I think they needed a bigger space because of COVID.
Happy to share!
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