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Lourdes

The Pyrenean Spring
Sacred CitiesNature Gateways
Portrait

After a girl reported eighteen apparitions at a rock grotto in 1858, Lourdes became the destination of some six million people a year, many of them sick, arriving on trains with medical staff aboard. The commercial strip is frankly commercial; the grotto itself, and the silence of the torchlight procession, are not.

If you like this city
Haridwar, India — Gates of the GangesKandy, Sri Lanka — Temple of the ToothKizhi, Russia — The Wooden Domes
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