Well the good news is that the weather today in those elusive mountains was just as bad as yesterday and the weather here was splendid.
But I did get a question about the “Lourdes sidebar” so this seems as good a time as any to provide some closure to the latest Pyrénées fiasco.
Back to Marguerite de Navarre. After carefully noting all the places mentioned in the prologue to the Heptameron, I did what literary nerd would do: Google them to plot my pilgrimage route.
It was then it became clear how strange this pilgrimage was. Marguerite’s geography was a reflection what was politically important to the French royal family, especially dealing with the lords of the Béarn. My map notations for the area had the Gave de Pau, the river that blocked Marguerite’s travelers as they tried to regain Tarbes. Perhaps that was a metaphor for an obstinate opponent. Of course, that river runs through Lourdes.
So, here I was planning on visiting obscure abbeys and seemingly inconsequential towns (unless, of course, you ski). Then it hit me, to do this I would have to drive through Lourdes, where Bernadette (later to be sainted -- see the 1942 film “the Song of Bernadette” ) saw the BVM some 19 times in 1858. Lourdes hit the miracle map and pilgrims began flocking there the next year. Now the Holy Grotto is a site visited by millions of pilgrims and tourists each year.
And, I did exactly that, drive through, noting that this weekend was the bikers (as in motorcycles) pilgrimage to Lourdes. I wonder what they will ask the Virgin for.
