Paris alone can fill two days of prayer. The chapel at 140 rue du Bac is where St. Catherine Labouré received the apparitions of 1830 that gave the Church the Miraculous Medal. Notre-Dame is open again to worshippers and visitors and keeps the Crown of Thorns, presented for veneration on set days. On Montmartre, the Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur has kept adoration of the Blessed Sacrament day and night since 1885.
Normandy belongs to St. Thérèse. In Lisieux pilgrims visit the basilica, the Carmel where she lived and died, and Les Buissonnets, her childhood home; her parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, married and raised their family in Alençon, also in Normandy. Mont-Saint-Michel is still a place of prayer, with Mass celebrated in the abbey church by the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem. Southwest of Paris, Chartres Cathedral is the goal of a walking pilgrimage of about 100 km (60 miles) each Pentecost weekend, and Tours keeps the tomb of St. Martin.
Through the center of the country run three shrines that fit naturally on the way south: Nevers, where St. Bernadette’s body has lain in a glass reliquary in the convent chapel since 1925; Paray-le-Monial, where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque reported the apparitions of the Sacred Heart between 1673 and 1675; and Ars, north of Lyon, the parish of St. John Vianney. In the Alps, the sanctuary of La Salette stands at about 1,800 m (5,900 ft) on the site of the apparition of 1846, approved in 1851.
If you have a week, choose between two shapes: Paris with Lisieux and Chartres, or Paris to Lourdes with Nevers and Paray-le-Monial on the way. Direct TGV trains link Paris and Lourdes, and Lisieux works as a day trip from Paris by train. Lourdes itself deserves at least two nights, so that you can be at the Grotto early and late, when it is quiet.