Sightings of the Virgin had been reported for centuries in the Pyrenees near Lourdes.
Ventoux, but the highlights, the Pyrenees, Alps, Burgundy are all doable for deluxe trips.
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This means Armstrong and the rest of the bunch will tackle the Alps before the Pyrenees.
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Following a rest day, the race meanders through south-east France before hitting the Pyrenees in some style.
Currently the departement (administrative region), stretching from mountainside to shining Mediterranean is officially titled the Pyrenees Orientales.
Instead, they have a modest link northwards into the greater European market thanks to a few pipelines through the Pyrenees.
With poor snow in Andorra, a destination increasingly popular with British holiday-makers, the Pyrenees is not much of an option.
The route heads inland to dry and hot Llanca before reaching the turn-off for Cadaques, where the Pyrenees meet the sea.
It was sheer guts, though, that got her over the Pyrenees in her espradilles when the Germans were at her heels.
"The whole Atlantic seaboard from Normandy to the Pyrenees is missionary territory for the National Front, " says local party leader Jean-Marc de Lacoste-Lareymondie.
But he had hoped to attend a final training camp in the Pyrenees mountains until hospital scans revealed the full extent of his injuries.
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Though virtually unknown compared to the likes of the Alps, Pyrenees and Dolomites, there is much to prove the Picos worthy of their grand name.
In the Haute-Pyrenees departement of France, there is anger that the area has been excluded from France's officially-designated disaster area, reducing the aid available to farmers.
Mr Deakin doesn't stay long enough in any one place to put down roots: halfway through the book he turns up in southern France, then the Pyrenees.
The last town before the Spanish border, Cerbere, feels more Catalonian and less French, with a smaller quai-side than Banyuls and a boat-clogged harbour framed by the Pyrenees.
Mr Hollande was meeting with Mr Marti in Paris in his role as one of the two co-monarchs of Andorra, which is situated in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain.
While visitors to the Alps and Pyrenees routinely pause on the slopes for two-hour, wine-soaked lunches, powder hounds in America have mostly resigned themselves to going out for budget-busting but lackluster meals.
Landis allowed Pereiro to take the yellow jersey as the race left the Pyrenees at the end of the second week to conserve energy for the three crucial stages in the Alps.
"To account for these results you have to have a lot of matter in the Universe and that leaves little room for dark energy, " said Alain Blanchard of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees in France.
On the border of Spain, with the great spiky Pyrenees mountain range as backdrop, the Midi-Pyrenees is an area characterized by magnificent architecture, medieval villages, river valleys, rolling farmlands, and food that is fabulous as only the French can deliver.
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