The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

Urdos, having been, for so many centuries between Roman civilization and our own, the end of the proper road over this chief pass and the jumping-off place for the mule tracks and for Spain, has many inns for its size—(it is no more than a hamlet)—but of these I will unhesitatingly recommend the Voyageurs, which is one of the last houses on the left of the village, having at the south end of it over the road a jolly little terrace where one dines. The drawback of Urdos is that one may get bitten, and speaking of this the sovereign remedy is camphor, or rather I should say, the sovereign preventive, for all animals that bite hate the smell of camphor. But for that little drawback, Urdos is delightful and nothing is pleasanter in Urdos than the Hotel de Voyageurs, also if you go to this hotel you are following the line of least resistance, for it is in some mysterious way related to the man who drives the coach. Remember that Urdos is accustomed to every form of halt, and though it is difficult to buy things there, there is a barn for motors—and also, I believe, relays of horses for carriages.

Your next village on this main international road is Canfranc in Spain. It is just over 14 miles off with nothing but a refuge and the pass of the Somport between. The hotel is the Hotel Sisas, from which a public coach starts for Jaca daily, still, I believe; the cooking is doubtful, the wine so-so, and the people are a little spoilt, but they are very ready with horses and used to hiring them, and you can always hire a carriage or get a relay for Jaca, which is 16 miles further down by a road with no steep hills, and for the most part nearly flat. At Jaca the hotel (which I have already spoken of) is the Hotel Mur; it is excellent in every way, clean, cheerful, and not too simple in its customs, with various wines, and a knowledge of more than the Castilian tongue. The mention of this leads me to add to what I said above that the language stops very suddenly at this central frontier, or at least south of it. There will be people who will understand Spanish almost anywhere in Béarn because the local dialects are Spanish in character, but the common French of Paris means nothing to the people of Aragon and Sobrarbe; you may be in quite a big place and find no one for a long time who will understand you, while in the small hotels and inns right up against the frontier, they do not follow a word of the language.

Of the inns of Biescas I cannot speak from experience, nor of those of Panticosa, though they say that the only useful one in Biescas is the Hotel Chauces, while Panticosa has any number of places with such names as “Continental” and “Grand,” and masses of lodgings as well, among which I imagine the only choice is to take the best; nothing is really dear there, except in the month between the middle of July and the middle of August. Of Sallent, however, I can speak. There is but one inn in the place; it has many names but is best known by the name of the man who owns it, and his name is Bergua. It is an astonishing mixture. The owner is wealthy and good natured, but you do not hear the truth about things for it is coloured by self interest. The place is clean, but slow even beyond the ordinary of a Spanish inn. The cooking is neither one thing nor another, the wine is not bad. It is a place where you may spend one night, but not two. You will leave it without enthusiasm, and without regret.

Next, following the itineraries I have given, comes Gabas, and here is as pleasant an inn as you will find in the whole world, it is called the Hotel des Pyrenees, and of the several hotels it is the dearest. The family of Baylou keep it and have inherited this soil for generations. It is an ancestor of theirs that planted the delightful Mail outside and set up the charming little fountain there. They are used in this house to every sort of gentlemanly habit, they pay no attention to the clothes in which one comes, and they understand all those who love to wander in the hills. Everything is clean and good about the place, they will give one well-cooked food in many courses at any hour. There is but one criticism to make and that is in the matter of horses and carriages; these are dear, and the good and the bad cost the same money, for there is here a monopoly of the valley, and if you do not take their vehicle, you must walk to the rail-head, 8 miles lower down. Also if for some reason you must drive or get a relay of horses, the longer notice you give the better, for there are few animals to be had.

Further down the valley is Eaux Chaudes, a dreary place, incredible from the fact that it was here that much of the Heptameron was written! If a man must stop there, let him; of the sad gloomy barracks, take the largest and the dearest, which is the Hotel de France. Laruns, at the foot of the valley, where again you are unlikely to stop, but where you may be caught, has the Hotel des Touristes, where also horses and a carriage may be hired, and whence the omnibus goes to Eaux Chaudes and to Eaux Bonnes. This last place, like Panticosa, is a place one can make no choice in, it is crowded with the rich, and where the rich have spoilt things, the only rule I know is to plunge and take the dearest—which is the Hotel des Princes—if you will not do that you must choose for yourself.

The next valley, that of the Gave de Pau, has in it four towns, Lourdes, Argelès, Cauterets, and Luz. Lourdes, like all cosmopolitan towns, is detestable in its accommodation, and to make it the more detestable there is that admixture of the supernatural which is invariably accompanied by detestable earthly adjuncts. Were it not so the world would be perfect: but it is so, and honestly one cannot say that any one hotel at Lourdes is better than another, only here again if one is compelled to stop for a night, one cannot do better than the best which is nominally the Angleterre. Avoid the hotels that have Holy names to them, they are usually frauds. If you go to Lourdes as a pilgrim, prefer the religious houses (which take in travellers). If the Angleterre is too dear for you, the Hotel de Toulouse is not to be despised; it should take you in at 25 to 35 francs a day. Argelès, up the valley, is a very different place, it is a little hurt by the neighbourhood of Lourdes, and by the stream of travellers who pour up and down its main road to Cauterets and to the sights of Gavarnie. Nevertheless it remains a French country town, and the fairly dignified capital of a district. The Hotel de France is excellent and, by the way (a thing always to be mentioned when one is speaking of hotels in the Pyrenees), it is ready at any time to furnish horses, and has, of course, a garage. At Luz stand two hotels facing each other on either side of the road, I cannot remember the names, or rather I cannot remember which is which, but anyhow take the one on the right of the road as you look up the valley, or as you come up from the station, that is, the one upon the western side. They are polite, and that makes all the difference in one’s relations with people whom one does not often meet.

Gavarnie, overrun as it is (and it is hideously overrun), has a very tolerable hotel, clean, and not too dear. The reason is that the people who come to the place usually go away on the same day, and that therefore there is some anxiety to please those who stop. Another inn, up under the mountain, is not so much to be recommended. Of Cauterets everything can be said—and much more—that was said of Eaux Bonnes, you are at the mercy of a place which the rich choose to have ruined, and apart from their vulgarity you will have that noise which accompanies them in all their doings, this sort of place in the Pyrenees is luckily not common, and when it is tolerable is tolerable in proportion as it is national. Cauterets is almost as international as Lourdes, and for anyone using the Pyrenees as I use them in this book, it would be madness to stop there. Bagnères-de-Bigorre is better, though it is something in the same line. It is better because it has something of a past and a history, and is, like Argelès, the chief town of its district. The Hotel de Paris is the best, but it is very expensive, and I believe, though I do not know, that the Hotel des Vignes in the Rue de Tarbes is good among the moderate places. But the rule holds here, as everywhere, that where rich people, especially cosmopolitans, colonials, nomads, and the rest, come into a little place, they destroy most things except the things that they themselves desire. And the things that they themselves desire are execrable to the rest of mankind.

Arreau, in the next valley, merits a more particular attention. It is thoroughly French, and here you will find side by side with the expensive places (for even Arreau has its Hotel d’Angleterre which, however, to tell the truth, is not ruinous) a most delightful little place called the Hotel du Midi, where sensible people go. I am speaking on the testimony of others, but on good testimony. It is a place smelt out by the infallible nose of the French professional class. It has a garage, and will tell you where to get carriages, though I believe it has nothing but an omnibus of its own. It is—or was—really cheap and good. But for some odd reason this excellent house charges you extra for your coffee.

Right high up this valley is Vielle where there is one hotel, the Hotel Mendielle, this is the one you must ask for if you find yourself caught here, and it is just the place at which one might be caught if one got into the wrong valley from a col in the Sobrarbe, or, if, in coming up the Gave, one had not made way enough by night; I know nothing for or against this hotel, and I believe it to be the only one. The little village of Aragnouet, which is at the very end of the road under the last precipices, has an inn of the quality of which I know nothing.

The next valley is that of Bagnères-de-Luchon. Now it might be imagined, seeing what rich places are in the way of hotels, that Bagnères-de-Luchon (being by far the richest place in the Pyrenees) would be hopelessly the worst, and that, as nothing good could be said about Cauterets, and as there was precious little choice in Eaux Bonnes, Luchon would be a place to despair of in the matter of hotels, but on the contrary it is a place to discuss.