Lourdes is a town built around a miracle, and everything in it, from the souvenir shops to the shape of the streets, follows from that. In February 1858, a fourteen-year-old miller's daughter named Bernadette Soubirous reported seeing a lady in a grotto by the river Gave de Pau, an apparition she saw eighteen times in that year. The Church eventually accepted it, and the grotto became one of the most visited Catholic shrines in the world. Some three million pilgrims come each year, including many sick and disabled people, and the vast sanctuary has basilicas, processions and a candlelit procession in the evening that is moving whatever your beliefs.
Besides the shrine, Lourdes has a fortress on a rock, a lively old quarter and a funicular up the Pic du Jer, a limestone hill with a view over the plain to the Pyrenees. The town has about sixteen thousand residents but more hotel rooms than almost any other French town outside Paris, so beds are never scarce. Fuel, shops, bike mechanics and restaurants are easy to find. The atmosphere changes between the sanctuary, which is solemn and ordered, and the nearby streets, which are cheerfully commercial.
The Pyrenees begin close to the town, and the ride east from here is a tour of the great Tour de France climbs. The Col du Tourmalet, at 2,115 metres the highest road pass in the French Pyrenees, is a short way south, reached through Luz-Saint-Sauveur, and the Aubisque and Soulor passes lie to the west. The roads climb in long, steady bends through meadow and forest to bare, windswept summits, and cyclists in team colours labour up them in summer, so patience is needed. The surface is good, though patchy near the tops, and some passes close from November to May.
Weather in the mountains is changeable, with warm sun in the valley and fog, wind and rain at the top, so carry waterproofs and a warm layer. Livestock, including sheep, cows and horses, graze the high pastures and wander across the road, usually at corners. In the evenings, the air in the valleys smells of woodsmoke and cut grass. Fill the tank in Lourdes before you leave, because the mountain villages have few pumps, and enjoy a good breakfast before the climb.