Trip From India to Lourdes

Hi

I am planning to gift my parents a trip to Lourdes for their wedding anniversary. Can someone advise me on

1.which is the closest international airport to Lourdes for a direct flight from Bombay (Mumbai)

2.good hotels at a walkable distance to the grotto

3.places to see . They will not drive around ,and will need to depend on public transportation.

4.Are 5 days good enough to cover all the sites. I could add a few days for them to visit Paris too.

If anyone has a scanned copy of the area map (English), could you pls send it to me.

Appreciate your suggestions and help.

Diana

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Hi Diana - and welcome!

Your parents would have to fly to Paris from Mumbai. From there they could continue their journey by taking a flight to Toulouse. If they fly on Air France the flights could be booked straight through with no problem. From Toulouse they would have to take a train - about two hours, I think - to Lourdes.

You should also be able to arrange to break the journey in one direction (but probably not both) in Paris.

There really is not much to see as a tourist in Lourdes. The setting of the town in the Pyrenees is beautiful. Other than the Grotto and the Basilica there really is not a lot to see. A couple of small and (IMO) not very interesting museums, and that%26#39;s about it. I think three days would be more than enough time just to see the %26quot;sights.%26quot;

I do think that you should arrange for your parents to spend as much time as you can manage in Paris. A week would allow them to visit many places, longer would be even better. Just what I would recommend would depend on their particular interests.

If you go to www.mappy.com or www.viamichelin.com you will be able to download maps of the area, and zoom in or out on them to get a sense of the geography.

You can find train timetables from Toulouse (or Paris) to Lourdes at www.voyages-sncf.com

You can also purchase tickets online through the SNCF site, but you might want toask again about how to do that before you try. The SNCF site is not particularfly user-friendly.

Air France%26#39;s web site is at www.airfrance.fr

I don%26#39;t want to be too personal, bt if your parents are going to Lourdes as tourists rather than pilgrims, I think there are many more interesting places in France for them to go. Or, if they want to combine something of a pilgrimage aspect with visiting Europe as tourists, they could combine a visit to Rome with a visit to Paris.

Of course if they have personal reasons for wanting to go to Lourdes, that is an entirely different matter.

Hope this is helpful. Do feel free to ask any more questions.