Lourdes

Travel Guide Europe France Midi-Pyrénées Lourdes

Introduction

Lourdes, France

Lourdes is a small town in the Midi-Pyrénées region of southern France. Nestled in the foothils of the Pyrenees mountains at an altitude of about 420 metres above sea level, it only has about 15,000 inhabitants, but caters to 5 million visitors annually. After Paris, it has the highest number of hotels in the country!

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Sights and Activities

Lourdes is of course most famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes that are reported to have occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous.
Because of this, Lourdes has evolved into a major tourist destination of Christian Pilgrimage and mircaluous healings which are reported as well. Many sick or elderly people come here for that same reason. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is the main place with thousands of visitors from March to October.

There are quite a few more attractions though:

Visit The Grand Jer mountain, accessible via the funicular railway of the Pic du Jer.
Ukrainian Catholic Church
Château Fort de Lourdes is a historic castle.

Lourdes

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Events and Festivals

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Getting There

By Plane

Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées Airport (LDE) is located in between Tarbes and Lourdes. Air France, operated by Brit Air serves Paris, BMI has seasonal flights (summer) to Manchester and Ryanair will start flights to London from December 2009 onwards.
For more options, you can try the airports near Toulouse, Pau or Biarritz.

By Train

The French Railways has services to Bayonne (1¾ hours, up to four daily), Pau (30 minutes, at least 10daily) and Toulouse (1¾ hours, six daily). There are four daily TGVs to Paris (six hours).

By Car

Lourdes can be reached along the N21 which branches of the main A64 highway from Tarbes. From Paris, it is a solid 9-hour drive via Toulouse.

By Bus

The small bus station has services to Pau (1¼ hours, four to six daily). Buses also go to Tarbes and Argelès-Gazost (at least eight daily) and to the Pyrenean communities of Cauterets, Luz-St-Sauveur and Gavarnie. SNCF buses go to Cauterets (one hour, at least five daily) and leave from the train station.

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Getting Around

By Car

By Public Transport

By Foot

Lourdes can easily be explored on foot and there are several pedestrian-only streets.

By Bike

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Eat

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Drink

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Sleep

There are dozens of hotels and camping sites in and around Lourdes.

Property	Address	Type	Popularity
Hotel Notre Dame de Fourviere	15 Rue du Révérend Père de Foucauld or 77 rue de la Grotte	Hotel	82
Hotel Roissy	16 av Mg Schoepfer	Hotel	82
Hotel Saint Etienne	61 Boulevard de la Grotte	Hotel	73
Hotel Saint Roch	6, Place Jeanne d'Arc	Hotel	73
Citôtel de la Vallée	28 Rue des Pyrénées F-65100	Hotel	96
Hotel Lutetia	19, Rue de la Gare	Hotel	81
Resid&Co la Closeraie	31 Avenue de la Gare	Hotel	100
Hotel Marial	77 rue de la Grotte	Hotel	69
Hotel Saint Christophe	75 rue du Bourg	HOTEL	80

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Keep Connected

Internet

Phone

Post

La Poste in France is also referred to as the PTT (short for postes, télégraphes et téléphones). The mailboxes are painted bright yellow and often there is a slot for local city mail and another slot for "outside mail". Normally there is a queue in the post office, but most of the post offices have the self service machine installed which is quite easy to operate. Nowadays many of the tabac and even some of the souvenir shops also sell postage stamps. Normally an overseas postcard costs almost as much as sending a letter.
Post offices are generally open from 8:00am to 7:00pm Monday through Friday, and 8:00am to noon on Saturdays. Apart from the basic job of mailing letters, most of the post offices do some banking activities also and some even have photocopy machines and cyber cafes for internet access.