A few years ago, my mom and I flew to France to visit the famous Grotto in Lourdes. Lourdes, France is a small town located in the foothill of the Pyrenees, and a major Catholic pilgrimage town. With only a few months of planning, we decided to kick off the holiday season and take a trip to Lourdes and Paris.

Due to the cold weather and holidays, there weren’t many tourist visiting Lourdes. It literally looked like a ghost town and  only a handful of restaurants and hotels were open to the public. We stayed at the  Hotel Saint-Sauveur. The hotel room was small but I didn’t mind at all because we had an awesome view and the bathroom had a bidet!

It’s a good thing I enjoy coffee and pastries because that’s what we ate every morning.

My mom was my personal tour guide once we entered the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes and it was much more beautiful than how she would describe it. The Church, the Grotto and the Stations of the Cross in the mountain were absolutely breathtaking. We were able to attend an English Mass and took part in the Holy Water bath which was such an amazing experience. We purchased containers and filled them up with the Spring water to take back home to our family and friends.

After a few days in Lourdes, we took the euro train to Paris. The train ride felt extremely long but it was quite an experience. Arriving late in the evening, we decided to have dinner, relax and start touring the following day.

The best way to see Paris is on a tour bus and I highly recommend Big Bus Tours. It is a hop on hop off bus tour that takes you to all the major landmarks in the city including the Eiffel Tour, Trocadero, The Louvre, Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame. They had several ticket options and we purchased the 2 day pass with the night tour and river cruise.

I was super excited for the river cruise and our night visit to the Eiffel tower but just my luck….FOG! The fog covered half of the Eiffel tower so we decided not to take the elevator up to the top since we wouldn’t be able to see anything. It was still beautiful with the layers of fog.

Food! I love eating and the one thing I had to try was a famous starter dish in France – escargot. I’ll be honest, the thought of eating snails was strange but garlic butter escargot….DELISH! We always made sure to leave room for dessert which 95% of the time was the Nutella-Banana crepe….again DELISH!

ESCARGOT

I didn’t take many pictures at Champs-Elysees (famous shopping avenue) but I have video footage in my YouTube video 🙂

GOYARD

I’m so blessed to be able to visit Lourdes and Paris France. The architecture, art, fashion, food and culture were beyond amazing and I can’t wait to go back. Even after the extreme jet lag that I suffered 🙂 LOL!

~TML