Lourdes: the sanctuary born from an apparition

In 1858, a fourteen-year-old girl reported seeing the Virgin Mary in a grotto on the town's outskirts: since then Lourdes has become one of the world's largest Catholic pilgrimage sites.

The sanctuary is comfortably explored on foot.

At the Grotto of Massabielle, Bernadette Soubirous reported seeing the Virgin eighteen times in 1858: the grotto remains today the heart of the sanctuary, with a spring of water considered miraculous by pilgrims.

Above the grotto stand the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and the Basilica of the Rosary, built in the decades following the apparitions to accommodate the growing number of faithful.

Nearby, the pools of the sanctuary allow pilgrims to immerse themselves in the spring water, according to a ritual that attracts millions of visitors worldwide each year.

With evening, the Marian Procession by Candlelight crosses the sanctuary esplanade with thousands of candles, a ritual repeated every evening during the pilgrimage season.

An independent medical office has examined healing attributed to Lourdes water for over a century: only a very small number of cases have received official recognition, after years of verification, as unexplainable by science.

The evening candlelit procession is held in any weather, rain included: thousands of candles, protected by small paper shades, remain lit even during sudden downpours.