Rocamadour

Yesterday, I took a trip to Rocamadour.  I made my way to the train station for my train at 6:27 am.  Now it just so happens that everyone walks home from the bar at 6am extremely drunk.  I had one guy stop me and ask for a kiss, after saying, "No," he left me alone.

Now the train station for Rocamadour is about a 4km walk from the town.  This means that at 8:10 am I stepped off a train into the middle of no-where Southern France.  This train station wasn't open, but I thought maybe that was because it was still so early in the morning and it looked like there was a hotel/bar across the street.  (These details will become important later.)

I start off in high-spirits toward Rocamadour, thankfully the walking path to Rocamadour is well marked because otherwise I think I would have gotten lost with my google maps directions.  I couldn't help but feel like I was back on the Way of St. James as I walked between fields.

I arrived at Hospitalet and was lost, luckily a gas station was open and the man gave me directions.  I also met a stray dog who followed me around for a bit.

Rocamadour is beautiful and at this time of year completely dead.  Apparently, they receive 1.5 million visitors a year, but yesterday there were only a few other people around.  The entire town is closed down and everyone is on their yearly holidays.

A hermit's body was found well preserved in Rocamadour and since then numerous miracles have happened there.  The town was built to accommodate the large number of pilgrims arriving (this was during the middle ages).  They have a statue of Mary (Our Lady of Rocamadour) before which many prayers have been answered.

The town has three levels, the town site  the sanctuary (which has the basilica and 6 chapels, only the basilica and chapel to Our Lady were open), and the Castle.

First I visited the sanctuary area and attended daily Mass.  The sun was shining and I was enjoying the beauty of my surroundings.  After Mass I made my way up to the castle and walked around the ramparts which was a waste of 2 euros, but such is life.

Then, I prayed the Stations of the Cross walking up the hill to the Castle.  The stations are set up on switch backs all the way up and it's absolutely beautiful.  It started snowing while I was praying and I just really appreciated the beauty of the moment.  It was completely silent (as I was the only one on the trail), the landscape is beautiful, and the snow was falling gently.  I was thinking, "Wow, how blessed am I to experience this.  If I were to come in the summer, this place would be loaded with tourists and the prayerful atmosphere would be absent.

At around 3:30 ish I decided to head back to the train station as it was snowing quite heavily- this was  a mistake.  I got back at 4:30pm and the train station was still closed and locked, furthermore, the hotel/bar across the street was also closed for it's yearly holidays (my plan was to read and journal while I waited for the train).  I should've looked at the sign that morning, I made the same mistake my first night of the Camino of not looking closely at signs.  So what to do, it's cold and nothing's open.  I end up walking around for another hour just to keep warm, but I'm exhausted.  Then I just wait in the shelter for the train for like 1.5 hours listening to a talk about Fatima, which was really good.  I wish I would have known all that before I went to Fatima.  So basically I was super cold and finally my train arrived at 7:12pm and I made it back to Rodez.  An adventure it was and I learned that train stations in the middle of no-where aren't open with heat.