Day 20: Tour de France

Lourdes – Rest Day

The highlight of our stay in Lourdes was seeing Tui’s sister, Kiri who had travelled from Oxford in the UK to come and spend some time with us during the tour. Tui and Kiri headed off to a nearby town in the hire car and tried the local delicacies on the menu including gabor soup. This consists of duck and pork in a consommé with cabbage, carrots and haricot beans. Very tasty. They also purchased some cheese made from sheep milk; some made from cows milk and also cheese made from a combination of the milk. During the afternoon and evening we had a walk around Lourdes which is famed for reports there of the vision of the Virgin Mary whom thousands claim to have seen. The first apparition of Lourdes is said to have occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous, later canonised as a saint. Each year about 5 million people visit Lourdes as pilgrims. It was an incredible sight to see so many of them during our stay there. It was good timing for Tui to have a rest day after two days on the bike and also the time in Lourdes marked the arrival of the second group of people joining the trip for the remainder of the journey to Paris. The day finished with some lovely local wine paired with delicious cheeses.