Lourdes

[Darialee]

I would like to start my Camino in Lourdes. I'm planning on 2015 and I'd like to start on Easter Sunday after Mass.
Questions:
1. Can I get my passport somewhere before I get there, I'm afraid everything will be closed on Easter.
2. How many days should I plan from Lourdes?
3. Easter is mid-April that year - is that going to be a horrible time to start? weather-wise? crowd-wise?

Thank you!!!

 

[Deleted member 3000]

What route interests you? You can cross the Pyrenees from Oloron-Ste.-Marie or St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port. From Oloron you go to Somport then take the Camino Aragones to Puente la Reina.

 

[Darialee]

At this point I'm not sure. It sounds like the Oloron path is the more challenging of the two. I need to find a map that shows the routes in more detail. Any suggestions on where I can find one?

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Via Lourdes and SJPdP, look at Le Chemin de Piemont: http://www.chemins-compostelle.com/Leschemins/leschemins.html
Via Oloron and Somport, look at the Le Chemin d'Arles.

 

[Darialee]

Looks like SJPdP is the route I want. That puts my km up to 936.... which adds a few days to the plan.
What issues do you think this will add to my trip - not the number of days, but the fact that it will be Easter Sunday.
I hope to arrive early on Saturday, spend Easter in Lourdes and then start my Camino walk.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

There are huge Easter pilgrimages to Lourdes around Easter. Expect problems finding lodging, though everything seems to be a lodging in the city!

 

[sillydoll]

Easter Sunday is 20th April and the weather in the south of France and north of Spain could be snowy and wet.
It will probably be safer for you to walk to St Jean at that time of the year. The Somport Pass is about 600m higher than the Ibaneta Pass (1057 m) and can be treacherous in the snow. Start looking for a place to stay now! Lourdes is a small place with more hotels than residential houses but it will be cock-a-block with pilgrim tours at Easter.

 

[Darialee]

I picked Easter for sentimental reasons but I really don't want to visit Lourdes with hundreds of other people. I may move my date out a couple weeks. It is hard to pick a date that is a balance of warm/cool weather and not a zillion other people on the trail.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

I really don't want to visit Lourdes with hundreds of other people

Tens of thousands, actually!!

 

[sillydoll]

Darialee, Lourdes is a mega-pilgrim destination throughout the year and is not a solitary shrine. If you sit at a sidewalk café long enough you'll count dozens of large buses constantly offloading pilgrims. I love the hustle and bustle of the town which is like the Disneyland of Bernadette, Jesus and Mary! You can find souvenirs with their faces on them from key rings to cushion covers.
Once you cross over the bridge to the sanctuary it is a different world - like a crowded but orderly college campus. The 9pm candlelight rosary procession is almost medieval with priests and groups carrying their banners, followed by nuns and hospital staff pushing people in wheelchairs, followed by a mass of pilgrims all carrying candles in small paper lanterns with prayers printed on them in different languages.
You don't want to go there when there are only hundreds of people! Lourdes deserves the thousands of pilgrims who go there, all special, all there for sentimental reasons - and you could be a part of that!

 

[Deleted member 12253]

You can get a credential in Lourdes, go to information office inside just inside main gate, they will give you a map of route if you wish to walk from Lourdes, in French , but April too early for Pyrenees . Buen camino

 

[Darialee]

Is the candlelight procession done at 9pm every night or only on certain ocassions?

 

[sillydoll]

Every night. And earlier in the day is the Blessed Sacrament procession which is held daily at 4.30pm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_of_Our_Lady_of_Lourdes

 

[FatmaG]

Lourdes is a mega-pilgrim destination throughout the year and is not a solitary shrine....like the Disneyland of Bernadette, Jesus and Mary! You can find souvenirs with their faces on them from key rings to cushion covers.

My god, Sil, what a great comparison! "disneyland of Bernadette"...

But indeed, Lourdes is like that, I confirm.
In 2010, I spent a night there on my Piémont Route.
I enjoyed my stay in "la Ruche" : it is a Pilgrim's accomodation only for pilgrims on a Jacobean Camino, so you might by chance find a room there. But you will have to make a reservation if you keep your Easter idea.
After days and days all alone, I admit that at some time the hundreds (or hundreds and hundreds) Lourdes pilgrims just were too much, and I was happy to leave the city where even the bells ring "Ave Maria".
The candlelight procession is very nice.

And for the unafraid: you can have a bath in the holy waters before leaving the town; or for the "unholy" : you can even buy an ashtray with Mary's image in it...

PS walking during Easter is indeed a very special thing, I did it already two times and liked it a lot! Of course it needs a minimum of preparation, especially in France and on a less busy camino.

 

[Darialee]

somewhere above people warned about snow at that time - how likely is that? While I don't want to walk in the heat of summer, i'm not crazy about sliding down a mountain either

 

[Deleted member 3000]

There is still snow on the Pyrenees in April. Whether it is a problem for walking depends on the existing conditions that day. If you cross at Somport, there is a bus that goes through a tunnel to Canfranc Estacion if the weather is bad. It is a three or four day walk up the river valley from Oloron, so you do not have to decide on the bus until the very end; it parallels the walking path, which is often the road.

 

[Darialee]

and if i'm going through SJPdP?

 

[sillydoll]

Lots of snow on the Route Napoleon this year - right up to the end of May. I had two groups walking at the end of May and neither could do the Route Napoleon. They walked on the Val Carlos route. There was still snow around Roncesvalles and Zubiri - and even at O Cebreiro as late as the middle of May.

 

[FatmaG]

In a year with less snow, there might be another alternative - in case you should like to walk the entire camino:

In fact, you could walk from Lourdes to Saint Jean and from there continue on the "Voie de la Nive" (connecting Saint Jean with Bayonne in 3 or 4 stages). You would reach the waycrossing from the "Voie de la Nive" with the Camino Baztan (connecting Bayonne with Pamplona in +- 6 stages).

I walked the Camino Baztan in early April 2012 and there was no snow at all - in fact, you cross the Pyrenees on a less high pass.

Except for one town, there were albergues everywhere (reservation is best, even in Spain, to make sure there will be someone the day you arrive). It is a lovely (and lonely) walk; the albergues were mostly not heated (I survived by taking a plastic bottle filled with hot water into my sleeping bag). You'll have to check food finding as well.

If you are flexible and ready to walk off the mainstream camino, the advantage would be that you could walk till Saint Jean and there decide where to cross the Pyrenees - depending on the snow level.

PS You should still have to pay attention on the snow level from Lourdes onwards - you will be walking in the foothills of the Pyrenees, on rather lonely tracks and already at quite a certain height above sea level (i.e. snow risks...)