Toulouse and Lourdes.

When we went to the train station in Nîmes we found chaos due to a theft of copper cable that disrupted power to critical part of the train network in the region. Our train was leaving on time from platform #1, so we went to the platform and found a train going to Toulouse on the platform. But it had no place for bikes and no car #8, turns out it was late leaving and our train was still coming.   We toured Toulouse and found that it was a fine town a bit rough around the edges with quite a lot of construction. The best part was the parks all over the city. We went to Lourdes the next day and had no trouble with the trains. 

Lourdes is impressive, we found the shrines, the churches, the pilgrims and monuments to be moving sights. We were also surprised by the number of hotels and restaurants. The place gets 6 000 000 visitors per year mostly in the summer. So there are scores of hotels and restaurants closed for the season and hundreds more still open for us out of season visitors. There is lots to do in Lourdes so don't hesitate to go. It is like Las Vegas for Catholics. (Thanks Lisa)

A market dedicated to chocolate artistry, my happy place.

The new bridge.

Some guide dogs in training.

At the train station.

There is a mirror at the base of one of he pillars in the church.

Yoly looking up

And you can take funny pictures.

Park with fountain

And Yoly with a bag given as a gift for buying chocolates at the market. We also had free chocolate tasting.

Turtle in Japanese garden.

Cieling at the City hall in Toulouse

The ceiling

View of the area around Lourdes from top of Pic du Jer.

We both made it to the tippy top. Lourdes in the background,

Yoly with long legs and shoulder troubles.

She is back to normal in the finiculaire.

This helped get us to the top.

Lourdes lower church.

Every painting was done with mosaics 

The ceiling of the church of Notre Dame

Yoly getting the treatment she deserves.

The Grotto where the Virgen Mary appeared to Bernadette in 1858.

You can buy holy water buy the 5 gallon jug and tons of other stuff!

The grotto from the castle.

Some models of villages in the garden of the castle.

A Spanish village

The castle at the top and some scars from the last flood this year.