A legend tells of the birth of Font-Romeu. One day, a bull belonging to a shepherd called Romeu discovered a statue of the Virgin Mary. It scratched the earth away at its feet, uncovering a miraculous fountain... Now in the Hermitage's "camaril", one of the most famous places of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees, this XIIth century statue is venerated throughout the Cerdagne.

High-ranking sportsmen and women from around the world come to Font-Romeu for a breath of fresh air.

Font-Romeu is located at an altitude of 1,800 metres. Dominated by the Carlit range, it has a healthy climate. It is the ideal place to cure respiratory illnesses and its secondary school hosts thousands of asthmatic children. Without hardly any other treatment, they breath easier due to the dry, pure air.

			The Odeillo solar furnace
		The sunshine hours recorded at Font-Romeu make it the ideal spot for the Odeillo solar furnace, the most powerful in the world. Larger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, it has 9,600 mirrors to capture the sun's energy and concentrate it to obtain temperatures over 3,000°C! The Odeillo laboratory is devoted to research on ceramics and their behaviour at very high temperatures.

 

La Cerdagne

A huge basin surrounded by high mountains	To explore the Cerdagne region, you simply must take a ride on the Little yellow train. Built early in the 20th century, the train twists its way from Vernet-les-Bains, near Prades, to Latour-de-Carol, an international railway station at the end of the Font-Romeu valley. Its two-and-a-half hour journey at 60 km/h takes you through grandiose settings (pic du Carlit, massif de Puigmal...), and offers you about 20 stops along its 62-kilometre journey. It gets around natural obstacles by some remarkable feats of civil engineering: the 65-metre high Séjourné viaduct, Gisclard bridge and 19 tunnels.

 

LLIVIA

		In 1659, the Pyrenees treaty delimited the border between France and Spain. The case of Llivia, a Spanish enclave within France, illustrates the difficulties found in applying it. The treaty allowed for 33 villages in the Cerdagne to become French. The Spanish claimed that as Llivia was a former Roman capital, and therefore a town, it should be Spanish by rights.

The oldest pharmacy in Europe, at the Llivia museum		This historical hiccough was a blessing for smugglers in the Cerdagne! Today, Llivia is a small town with typical Spanish looks and atmosphere. Its architecture is quite splendid.

	Practical tips