Traveling in France

We just got back from a trip to southern France. We spent one night in Perpignan and one in Torbes. We saw a lot of country, went to a few flea markets, saw castles, churches, got wet in the Mediterranean, ate a lot of French pastries and went through the Pyrenees. We drove on some famous routes through the Pyrenees which have some grueling climbs. You can appreciate the Tour of France a little more when you are on the same roads they ride on. But we had Margrett instead of our bikes. It was a trade-off, though. Without her we wouldn't have known about the town of Lourdes and Bernadette. Bernadette saw visions of Mary 19 times within a 2 month period. Now there is church built there and the grotto where she saw the visions is now a shrine. People come from all over the world to visit this grotto where there is a spring that supposedly has healing waters. People fill all types of water containers full of this spring water and take it home with them. It is silent all around this area and there are very faithful and religious people who travel to Lourdes to touch and kiss the stones at the grotto and get the water. If you google Bernadette you can read all about her. She was just 14 years old when all this happened and she never denied it even though she was persecuted for her story. Eventually, though, she had a following and people believed her. Enough so that there is a huge pilgrimage to this town of 15,000 people. Over 5 million people come each year and there are more hotels (270) in this town than in any other French city except Paris.

We drove a long ways. I'm discovering European countries aren't all that small. It's funny that I thought it felt like home when we re-entered Spain. All the writing looked so familiar again compared to all that French stuff. On the other hand we had not spoken Spanish in a week and I think I've lost some. And when you don't have much to begin with, that's a problem. In France I found myself asking if they knew English and if they said no, then I asked if they knew Spanish. Like that would help me much. But the question came out before I could really analyze what I was saying. However, they knew neither, so we were back to sign language. Whatever works.