Lourdes Txiki haitzuloa

This guide to the Lourdes Txiki grotto in San Sebastian opens with a handwritten sign near the altar, asking visitors not to scatter the ashes of the dead here, a request that goes ignored often enough to say something about the place. It traces back to 1903, when French Dominican friars fleeing anti-clerical laws in France settled nearby and built a small stone echo of the Lourdes cave beside a spring, purely as a place to pray. Marble plaques now cover the walls, exvotos left by hundreds of visitors over more than a century, each one a private thank-you carved in stone.