Lourdes

In 1858 Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen-year-old miller's daughter, said she saw a lady at the grotto of Massabielle eighteen times; the church accepted the apparitions in 1862 and building followed. The sanctuary now covers about fifty-two hectares with three churches stacked on the rock above the grotto, an underground basilica holding twenty-five thousand people, and baths fed by the spring. Around three to six million people come each year, many of them seriously ill or disabled, and the town is organised around that: the torchlight procession crosses the esplanade each evening in season. It is one of the most visited Catholic sites in the world.

What you actually see

• The grotto - the rock hollow of the 1858 apparitions with the spring.
• The stacked basilicas - three churches built one above the other on the rock.
• The underground basilica - a concrete hall for twenty-five thousand.
• The torchlight procession - a nightly candlelit crossing of the esplanade.

When to go

April to October, when the sanctuary is fully open and processions run; major feast days in August are extremely crowded. Winter is quiet and many hotels close.

Honest expectations

This is an active place of worship where many visitors are gravely ill, and casual sightseeing behaviour is out of place. The town outside the sanctuary is dense with souvenir shops. Baths require queuing for hours.

Nearby

The Col du Tourmalet lies east; the Pyrenees rise south.