We went on a pilgrimage to the Monastery of St Odile in the Vosges – well a sort of pilgrimage, a friend said it was a beautiful place to visit and the photo of the buildings on a high rock looked nice. So we went. I expected another dead, half-ruined monastery.

Instead we found a vibrant pilgrim place. I realised that as soon as we arrived and saw the plaque of John Paul’s visit in 1988.

High on its celtic stones lies the Monastery of St Odile. Great boulders and huge views over the Plaine d’Alsace stretch out to infinity.

Bands of horizontal mist lie in every fold of every valley retreating into a grey insubstantial distance.

The basilica is open. We arrive and by chance a Mass starts. Here in this place we think of a celtic princess, blind from birth, rejected by her father, hidden, and somehow cured.

Down the hills is the “Source”. Here St Odile tapped the rock and cured a leper. Here we put the cooling water on our eyes and hope for her cure too.

We leave reluctantly, driving through the vineyard villages, picture postcard in their country Germanic beauty, vines even growing over the road: a great arcade.

But we remember St Odile on her high rock.