www.lourdes-infotourisme.com. Each year around five million Catholic pilgrims flock to the site on the banks of the Gave de Pau where 14 year-old miller’s daughter Bernadette Soubirous witnessed 18 separate visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Many are invalids in search of a cure.

It is hard to remain objective about the rampant commercialism that spills out of the shop fronts leading to the ‘Cité Réligieuse’ – Virgin Mary bedside lamps in baby blue and white, statuary and confectionary all emblazoned with an inscription from Lourdes – or the patient queues of pilgrims winding along the river bank waiting to fill plastic cartons with water from the dank Grotte de Massabielle amidst a collection of rusting crutches. The mock-Byzantine Basilique du Rosaire is a model of l9thC bad taste; above it the Basilique Supérieur at least displays some touching votive offerings; while beneath the gardens, the Basilique Saint-Pie X has all the spirituality of a concrete bunker, which is exactly what it is.

Non-pilgrims will find refuge in the Château-Musée Pyrénéen which physically if not spiritually dominates the town perched on a rocky crag. A former feudal stronghold and prison, the castle contains a terrific museum of local crafts, archaeological and geological finds, stuffed examples of local wildlife, 18thC ceramics, and a room devoted to Pyrenean mountaineers.