(Toulouse) After two years of closure due to the health crisis, the grotto of Lourdes will reopen its doors to visitors on Friday, the sanctuary announced on Tuesday.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
Again, pilgrims will be able to “pass through the hollow of the Rock of Massabielle, under the feet of the Virgin Mary, Immaculate Conception, touch the rock and approach the source”, we rejoice on the side of the sanctuary in a communicated.
The closure of this cave, where the Virgin Mary would have appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, weighed on the attendance of the second hotel city in France, after Paris, which has 14,000 inhabitants and is 90% dependent on tourism.
Before the pandemic, many patients went to Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrénées), in search of healing, in the midst of the 3.5 million annual visitors.
The interior of the cave will be accessible again from 12 p.m. Friday, during the Angelus prayer.