DAY 1 – DUBLIN TO LOURDES
Check-in at Dublin Airport for your direct flight to Lourdes. A Joe Walsh Tours representative will meet the group on arrival and travel to the hotel in Lourdes where you will be staying for the next three nights.
The origins of the pilgrimages to Lourdes began when Bernadette Soubirous reported the first of eighteen visions of Our Lady on 11 February 1858. Since then, Lourdes has become the largest Catholic pilgrimage destination in Europe. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes embraces twenty-two places of worship and numerous facilities for the pilgrims and the sick, as well as the spring that began to flow from the spot dug by Bernadette on Our Lady’s instructions.
DAY 2 AND 3 – LOURDES
A full religious programme has been organised for your time in Lourdes by our local team. You will have the opportunity to take part in the Blessing of the Sick, the Blessed Sacrament and the Torchlight Processions. You will also enjoy a guided tour visiting places associated with St. Bernadette, including the Boly Mills, Le Cachot, the Hospice, the Parish Church and the Cemetery; and a guided walking tour of the Grotto Domain visiting the Grotto, the Baths and the Basilicas.
DAY 4 – ROCAMADOUR
After breakfast, the group will travel to spectacular Rocamadour. Set amid a dramatic landscape and suspended majestically on a clifftop over the gorge of the river Alzou, Rocamadour village has been a place of faith and pilgrimage for over 900 years. In 1166, the miraculously preserved body of St Amadour was discovered close to a little chapel, giving a new impetus to the pilgrimage and inspiring the daring construction of 7 churches and a monastery clinging to the cliff face just above the town. We will visit the monastic city, attend mass and visit the church of the Black Madonna and the Miraculous Bell.
DAY 5 – NEVERS
After breakfast, we continue our journey as we travel to Nevers, where St Bernadette Soubirous joined the Sisters of Charity at St. Gilard in 1866. She stayed here for 13 years until her death on 16 April 1879, at the age of 35. Her body, which had been buried in the chapel garden, was discovered intact in 1909 and transferred to rest in a shrine in the Chapel of St Gilard in 1925. The group will attend mass and visit the Convent of St Gildard, see the body of St Bernadette and walk in her footsteps through the convent gardens before continuing to the hotel for check in and dinner.
DAY 6 – PARIS
Today we will depart for Paris after breakfast where we will enjoy a panoramic tour of the city’s most important landmarks including the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees and the Louvre Museum. We will then visit Rue de Bac, the Shrine of the Miraculous Medal and home to the headquarters of the Daughters of Charity, co-founded by St Louise and St Vincent de Paul. It was here that Our Lady appeared to Sr Catherine Laboure on the night of 18 July 1830 and instructed Catherine on the design of the Miraculous Medal. The body of St Vincent de Paul can be seen nearby in Rue de Sevres. He died on 27 September 1660 and was canonised by Pope Clement on 16 June 1737.
DAY 7 – LISIEUX
After breakfast we will travel to our last destination: Lisieux. On arrival the group will have mass and visit places associated with St. Thérèse including Les Buissonnetts, the Carmel Chapel, the Museum and the Great Basilica. St Thérèse was born in Alençon on 2 January 1873. Her family later moved to Lisieux where Thérèse spent her time meditating and praying in the Cathedral of Lisieux. She joined the Carmelites at Lisieux at the age of 15. St Thérèse died in 1897, at the age of 24. In 1899 France discovered the secret message of the young nun through her autobiography and she was canonised on 17 May 1925. St Thérèse was proclaimed as the greatest saint of all time by Pope Pius X.
DAY 8 – PARIS TO DUBLIN
Today you will have some free time in Lisieux before traveling to Paris for our flight back to Dublin. We hope you enjoyed this Shrines of France pilgrimage with Joe Walsh Tours.
