May 3-10
Edited and done May 19
Dear Friends and Families,
Although
it will take us nine days, it seems like leaving Rioja means we are
heading home to Bavaria, but first we need to pass leisurely out of
Spain and through southern parts of France. On Monday, May 6th,
we left Briones before breakfast, since we had a full day of driving
ahead. An hour or so on the road and it was time for coffee and we
pulled off the road at a place called Puenta la Reina and discovered a
charming little village with a nice bakery for rolls and
coffee. It was a good choice to leave Briones early.From there, it was freeways past Pamplona and intermittent highways beyond. The "intermittent" refers to the mix of completed four-lane freeways and old two-lane connectors in uncompleted sections. For fun driving we preferred the two-lanes, but we need to make progress so the freeways were good too. Eventually we stopped for lunch at Jaca, Spain, and worked in a quick visit to the cathedral. Nice church, but I do think I am saturating on such monuments. Not good when heading to Lourdes.
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* I'm not sure if "Helgon" is some sort of word play on "hell gone" but, in Lourdes, it should be.
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After moving the car to a nearby parking place, we lugged our stuff to the top floor of the Helgon and settled in. The room turned out to be clean and relatively large, maybe because it was equipped for three pilgrims, not just two weary travelers. We rested a little and headed out into the holy city, but that's the next part of this story.
Helgon room and terrace view  |
Lourdes
A little history. Both Marianne and I were raised as Catholics, in Catholic schools through high school, and we had of course heard of Bernadette of Lourdes. The story goes that Bernadette, a poor miller's daughter, saw the Virgin Mary in a series of 1858 apparitions in a grotto at the base of the French Pyrenees. Her apparitions and subsequent holy life caused her to become an inspiration during and after her life. She was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1933 and the Sanctuary of Lourdes became one of the major pilgrimage sites for the Catholic religion.
During our visit, we wandered among the pilgrims. On the first day, there were hundreds or thousands of members of the Order of Malta,
a medieval group that started as European Crusaders and has continued
in role of helping the sick and poor. Their presence and the
presence of their invalid charges, lent a formal air to the goings and
comings around the grotto and the churches. After they left,
there were still plenty of church faithful to attend the continuous
series of services, ending with the candle-lit "Marian Procession" in
the evening.        |
The evening Marian
Processions were popular. The Order of Malta uniforms gave a
different feel on the first day from the "regular" folks the second day.          |
        
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     Even inside the grounds and the church.    
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We left Lourdes with mixed feelings overall. Was this a commercial circus or simply a place for the Catholic faithful to gather and be inspired. Maybe it was not our religious taste, but who are we to judge? An interesting place, in any event.
From religious
Lourdes, we left the Pyrenees behind and drove to ancient hill towns above Toulouse, to the
"Galliac" area. In the village of Castenau de
Montmiral we booked the Hotel des Consuls, a quiet 18-room, family-run hotel with a very friendly and helpful staff. We also ate at the two
restaurants in town, both unfortunately affected with more French
snippiness than we had experienced in years. Since we hit in the middle of May holidays, there was little to do but wander the quiet streets and check out the ancient buildings, some better repaired than others, and enjoy the vistas a hill town provides.
Hill Town Hotel des Consuls. Our first room and its view.    Streets and views around town.     
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Our first out-of-town excursion was up the road, past herds of bikers, to Puycelci, a bit
larger hill town that seemed more lived-in and friendly. That's
probably the impression we got when we had a good lunch at the Bistro Tarnais au Cabonon. We walked off our meal looking at buildings, including some that seem like good projects for someone, just not for us.
Puycelsi (French) or Puycelci (English)   Town houses, done and yet-to-be-done.     We saw teenagers examining this phone booth as if they had never seen one before. Could be. (When was the last time YOU saw one?)  Saint Corneille, 14th-18th Century village church, complete with Joan of Arc, a blending of church and state not usual in current secular France.    |
           
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Otherwise,
we just hung around the Castelnau hotel, enjoying patio picnics better than snippy restaurants. We stayed four days, our
longest hotel stay of the trip, and enjoyed just resting, not compelled
to do more than enjoy the French ambiance and wine.During one breakfast, we met Marianne and Mike, a similar-vintage French-Dutch couple who shared fun stories of their overseas life. In the end, we exchanged promises to stay in touch and they invited us to visit their Rome-area home. We'll see, maybe another trip.
On Sunday, we had a long drive, halfway home, to our favorite little hotel in Beaune. This was a Sunday at the end of a vacation week in France and traffic was a bit heavy. When Gertrude warned us of slow highway traffic ahead, we detoured onto a small road that followed a canal leading into Beaune. It was a very pleasant change from the bigger toll roads.
   
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John and Marianne