After yesterdays marathon 12 hour effort, today was a short day, only 17km and 380m in elevation.
I slept late, and the lady at breakfast took a pity on me, and gave me two of everything at the French breakfast (2 coffee, 2 croissant and 2 pieces of baguette).
I spent the morning walking around Lourdes one of the Catholic Churches must visit places – together with Rome, Fatima and Santiago. In 1858 a 14 year old girl is believed to have seen the Virgin Mary in a cave, and the water is supposed to have a healing effect which has made the site important for visitors. Many tap water from here. There is also a large hospital associated to the site.
There were many visitors from many nations, and there was a happy vibration, not solemn as I had expected.
Check-out was at 12 o’clock, so I waited until the last minute. It rained all night and the weather had a damp feeling to it.
After three challenging days, I was hoping for a problem free day. It wasn’t exactly problem free as I walked along the river and came to a fence and a gate, but the gate was locked. I walked back and found another locked gate, but at the third gate somebody was entering and told me to press a button to have the gate opened. If only I’d known that at the first gate.
I walked along the La Gave du Pau river, along a mixture of roads and a muddy paths, but once out of the Lourdes compound, there were no particular challenges. I stopped at Saint-Pé-de-Bigorre and visited the church, before continuing towards today’s destination, Lestelle-Betharram.
A kilometer before the hotel I came across the Betharram caves, opened in 1903, a fantastic journey through massive caverns, stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and wonderful formations. They really make you realise how old our earth is – a stalactite and stalagmite join to form a column, getting 5cm closer to each other per 1.000 years (ca.)
After walking 2,2km in the caves and 330 steps down an 80m chasm, you sail along an underground river and finally take a train through the cave back to the start. A nice experience.
All in all, a restful day in preparation of many rainy ones on the way!
I had a nice dinner at the hotel. The dinning room was full of different nationalities, many of whom seemed to know each other. It turned out, that they were several couples who came here every year during the same week, but otherwise had nothing to do with each other outside this one week.