The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

With these eight divisions I have roughly covered the chain of the Pyrenees for those who may, like myself, think that all travel on these mountains should be on foot. It is, of course, but a very rough and general survey, but it would give one, all taken together, a comprehensive knowledge of the chain. My limits have necessarily excluded very many valleys, some of which are unknown to me, such as the valley of Isaba. Among those which I have not dealt with should be considered especially the Ribagorza, which is the boundary between the Aragonese and the Catalan tongues, and runs parallel to Pallars or the valley of Esterri, and can be reached from the valley with some difficulty by Espot and the high Portaron above it, or much more easily from Viella in the Val d’Aran, by the high Port de Viella, which leads straight into the Ribagorza and down to Bono. There are also entrances in and out of Andorra, of which I did not speak, notably the Porte Blanche, which you make from Porta in the Val Carol, a mile or two south of Porté. This way involves two cols, one very high one, the Porte Blanche, another lower one immediately after, the Port de Vallcivera. It is, however, the shortest way from a French high road to Andorra the Old. There is another way in and out of Andorra, very little used, by the Col de la Boella from Ordino to the Val Farrera. All the Basque valleys besides those I mention, and notably that of the Isaba, are places that should be known, and of the passages over the range, which I have not dealt with in detail, one, the road from St. Girons to Esterri by the Port de Salau, will soon be an international highway. It presents no difficulties and no very considerable interest. But if the traveller finds himself by some accident in St. Girons with but a day or two in which to see Spain, here is a very easy way of getting over into what is still one of the remotest parts of that country.

THE CANIGOU

VII
INNS OF THE PYRENEES

There is nothing more necessary to the knowledge of a district if one desires to enjoy travel in it, than to have some directions upon its inns. I cannot pretend in what follows to give any complete list of the inns which the traveller will find in the Pyrenees, but I will try to do what the guide-books do not do, and that is to indicate what an Englishman, especially one on foot, may expect in the different valleys. The foreign guide-books rarely do this well: the Scotch and English guide-books never; for the general phrases which they use about inns and hotels leave one as full of doubt and terror as though nothing had been said about them, and they always fail to speak good or evil of the people, the cooking, and the wine—which are the three main things one wants to hear about.

First then, as to the difference between the Spanish and the French side.

Though the Basques are one race upon either side of the frontier, and the Catalans also, yet a single rule governs the whole length of the chain, which is that French cooking and French hours are to be found to the north of the political frontier, and Spanish to the south. This is a matter in which the difference of Government has, in the course of some generations of travel, produced a very marked effect. The Val d’Aran, for instance, is geographically and racially French. Its river is the Upper Garonne, there is no obstacle between it and the French plain, but only one good descending road to unite them both; yet your experiences of an inn in the Val d’Aran will in general resemble your experiences of an inn beyond the mountains in the purely Spanish valley of the Noguera.

Similarly the neighbourhood of Saillagouse and all the French Cerdagne is geographically and racially Spanish, the river running through it is the Upper Segre (a tributary of the Ebro), and one road with no obstacle at the frontier, unites the French to the Spanish portion of the valley, yet the hours, habits, cooking, and everything in the inns of the French Cerdagne are French, in those of the Spanish Cerdagne, Spanish; and generally you must be prepared, when you cross the frontier, for a different kind of hospitality.