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Home Page > Travelogues > France > Lourdes > Pont Vieux Other Chapters in the
Lourdes
section:
I titled this chapter of the Lourdes
travelogue "Pont Vieux" after one of the bridges over the River Gave that led us
from the Sanctuary to a combination hotel-souvenir-museum-restaurant district in
the southern part o The first point of interest is the Souribous Museum, located not
far from our hotel, which was on the Boulevard de la Grotte leading directly to
the Sanctuary. Just about the hotel was an intersection with a side road
called Rue Bernadette Souribous that curved and paralleled our road (our hotel
window at the back overlooked it). The museum was just off the
intersection, built inside one of the houses that the family lived in during
Bernadette's childhood. The first photograph
The other two landmarks to the Saint sharply contrasted. Further down the
same road was the house where Bernadette was born, called the Maison Paternelle
de Bernadette. This was a beautiful white house with a fashioned brown
balcony decorated with spring flowers. Well, at least that's what it looked like
in 2005 -- it might not have been
The rest of this section of the city was largely devoted to tourism,
particularly caring for the needs of the thousands of pilgrims that descended on
the Sanctuary
The third photograph shows one of the main roads in this district, the Rue de la Bernadette. As the picture shows, this road had a lot of souvenir stands, especially of Catholic items -- rosaries, crucifixes, and bottles to capture the holy water that flowed freely from spigots in the Sanctuary. Photo studios were plentiful as the demand for group photos was high (see Pilgrimage Day 2 for example). Currency exchangers were also plentiful despite the Euro, although the holy shrine of Lourdes was not absent the sins of awful exchange rates.
This road led to the scene in the fourth photograph, taken on a bridg Interspersed among these establishments were several other religious landmarks. At the Pont Vieux was the Church of Our Lady which was erected (according to the gilded letters mounted on her facade) in the 1870s, after the apparitions. The fifth photograph was taken further up the river along Rue de la Grotte overlooked the old convent, the Couvent des Clarisses, the yellowish gray structure in the center of the photo. This convent was not open to the public when we were there. The Rue de la Grotte brought us directly to the base of the Fort, described in the next chapter. The museums were a must-do, even though they were smallish and perhaps expensive for their size. They did a good job of laying out the conditions that Bernadette endured as a youngster. As for the rest, those who enjoyed shopping had no problems pursuing their fancies, and I doubted anyone starved in modern-day Lourdes. But, I found the non-touristy areas of the city more interesting, as the next chapter on Fort and City will show. Trip taken 25-27 May 2005 -- Page Last Updated 10 October 2006 -- (C) 2006 Tom Galvin Other Chapters in the
Lourdes
section:
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f town. The bridge was emblematic, marking a separation
between the Holy Lands of Lourdes and the life support structure for the many
pilgrims. This area was also separated from the rest of the city and its
permanent residents by the valley that wrapped around the Sanctuary to the east.
It was in this section of town that several (except for one) key landmarks
relating to St. Bernadette Souribous reside. The first part of this
chapter covers those locations. The rest is devoted to the shopping and
tourism facilities that have surrounded other historical landmarks along the
Gave Valley.
shows
what the museum was about, a recreation of life in the Souribous household.
Also included were recreations of Bernadette's bedroom and the mill where her
father worked. A couple of rooms were reserved for dedications, including
a reprint of a very old photograph of the girl surrounded with hundreds of
engraved plates to her with only the word Merci or thank you. For
me, the most telling part of the museum was the mural depicting the family tree.
Bernadette had seven siblings in total, but only three survived beyond infancy.
Another reminder of how different the world was in the mid-1800s.
that beautiful in Bernadette's time. But the interior was big and it
seemed like a successful family of six fit in their comfortably. However,
the family would fall on hard times and would have to take refuge in a very
different type of setting. The second photograph shows the interior of a
one-room apartment called "the cachot" which translated to "the dungeon"
as it once served as a prison cell. This tiny room was no bigger than a
regular children's bedroom in an American home, yet the family of six lived,
cooked, and survived in there for quite some time. It was during their
stay in the cachot that Bernadette had her first encounter with the Virgin Mary.
The cachot was located directly south from the Souribous Museum on the other
side of the Fort. There were several other landmarks that the tourist
literature offers as the "Footsteps of Bernadette" tour, and these are included
in the 
every
day. The hills of the fort divided the life support area into two.
As mentioned above, we stayed in a hotel in the northwest on the Boulevard de la
Grotte. This part was heavily inclined and seemed less busy. The
other end was the happening zone down in the southeast. This flat riverbed
zone had block after block of places to go, eat, shop, and stay.
e
over the Gave River. This was the Pont Vieux from which this chapter was
named. This part of the city had the bulk of the hotels. These were
high-rise structures perched on the valley walls overlooking the prime café,
bar, and restaurant district. Eateries (called 'brasseries') lined both
sides of the river there. Nearly all cuisines were covered in this part of
town (as opposed to the northwest which was predominantly traditional French).
The photograph included a familiar French
tourism sight, a white and blue train that took pilgrims on a tour of the city
(although they were not permitted on Sanctuary grounds, at least not while we
were there).
