In the morning it was very cloudy and moist. Not the right conditions for a cycle tour to higher regions, especially aftery experience of the day before. I started to look for points of interest, that I did not look for earlier. The birth house of Bernadett, Moulin de Boly, was the first. It is a bit hidden behind the commercial buildings in the rue de law Grotte. The water stream that drove the mill is faked, but at least you know, where it happened to be. Visitors are expected to spend some money for the entrance. The first part is in a neighbouring building an is a little exhibition about Bernadette`s family. In the real building the rooms are shown the daily lived in. The mill itself including a wooden turbine is interesting for technicians.
At the quai St Jean is an artificial waterfall to lead water onto the water power station of la Grotte.
I followed the signs to Cité St. Pierre. This was not accessible for a standard tourist. I continued on the same direction and had some nice views over the city. Another sign pointed to leave Béout, a mountain summit. But the path disappeared in a motorbike trial area. Ecologically this was a nice part of the walk. I had my lunch on a rock there.
Because the footpath was not marked anymore an the track was not clear, I did some steps back to the Rodhain Avenue. Next point was the start station of the funiculaire, a nice Jugendstil building. The seismic exhibition at the opposite side of the street was closed for an unknown reason. It should be open on Saturday.
On the avenue Francis Lagardère is the dismantled lower station of the télépherique to the Béout mountain. The engine was still in the building;cables had been removed.
I returned to the center and saw the Chateau de Soume. According to OSM there would be a cave named Grottes des Sarrazins. I had no success to find it. Probably it is on private area.
At the tourist office I tried to use the free WI-FI (name registration required) .
I revisited the holy area and during am heavy rain shower I looked at a diaroma of Bernadettes life. Them I returned after some food shopping my tent.

Today I decided with Monika my wife, not to continue the cycle tour further from here this year, due to a funeral of a good friend.
At the station I asked for connections to Strassbourg with a bicycle. The lady at the desk searched for a long time, but all the transporting capacities for bicycles had been completely booked out. The alternative is to rent a car and take everything in. That I will do.
I have to leave on Tuesday,  so the remaining days I will use Lourdes as a base for day tours.
I entered Col d`Aubisque as destination in my Garmin and started cycling. The first part was about the same as my originally planned tour, so I preferred the routing by Komoot over very small and quiet roads along the river named Le Gave de Pau. At Poumarali I had to change to a larger road D937, but still rather quiet. At the next opportunity I crossed the Gave again and saw a sign ‘road unusable`. Without luggage I could take the risk and some hundred meters after the sign there was debris on the road. Cars would not be able to pass, but the bike did it. At thenext village the small road started climbing and I passed cows and goats. After a small descent I was in the valley of l`Ouzom. Until Ferrieres, a former mining village, there was originally a railway connection. Today the road is using parts of the old railroad and so mot very steep. after Ferrieres the climb started, that was expected. But also I reached the clouds and saw less and less. Over 1100 m thunder came from those clouds. It still did sound far away. On the mean time I had seen that I would first reach the Col du Solour at 1474 m. Just before the Col hail and rain came from the clouds.
At the Col I had an easy decision: leave the Col d`Aubisque at my right hand and ride down to Lourdes directly, not without dressing me well against cold and wet weather. In Argeles-Gazost I switched to a Voie Verte – a former railroad again and reached Lourdes without much efforts.
Today: 95 km (without luggage)

The center of Lourdes was just a short walk away, so I left my bike near my tent. The first church I spotted was the Sacré Cœur, that had been built about a century ago. The original church had been to small for all religious guests. But this church is not part of the Sanctuary. That is hidden from the center by the fortress of Lourdes.
In the (ugly) tourist office I got a map with all important locations. I went into the direction of the Sanctuary leaving the fortress left of me. The way was stuffed with religious tourist shops, that offered plastic Maria’s to be filled with water from the cave. After the Pont St Michel, at the beginning of the Sanctuary there was a sign: no ice cream, no use of cell phones etc. And no commercial activities apart from selling candles. There are for layers of churches here. The Basilique Souteraine, a huge under-earth concrete building is the first and then three churches within the Basilique.
After seeing the Basilique churches, I first walked the Chemin the Croix, with large bronze coloured statues building the scene for each stage. After passing a closed cave at the end I went down to the river bank near the Basilique.
People were queueing for La Grotte, or precisely Grotte de Massabielle. The candleman was cleaning up rests of wax under the Mary statue. And the rocks in the Grotte were smooth, due to the thousands of hands that touched them. Just before La Grotte, one can tap water from the source, it tasted well.
After La Grotte people were waiting to be bathed in the source water:one entrance for men, one for women, one for ill people and one for children.
This part could have been described by Thomas Mann (Zauberberg): disabled and ill persons were transported in historic wheeled equipment, about one century old. maybe that belongs to Lourdes, but I would expect some more current material today.
After the bathes there was a candle burning site. Huge candles put in iron chambers were producing smoke, heat here. On many of them stocked a paper, mentioning the reason, why the candle had been lit.
I returned to the center to have my lunch near les halles. Then I looked at some locations from poor Bernadette`s life. The mill, she lived in is still there, but no water to drive the mill and hidden under newer buildings.
Another negative point of Lourdes is the traffic in the historic kernel. It is so small, that they could assign this area to pedestrians only.
Every evening at 9 pm the candle lighted procession with Mary starts. I think, about a thousand persons were there.  It was rather impressive to see.