On the Canigou itself, standing upon a platform a few hundred feet below the summit facing the Mediterranean and one of the greatest views in this world, there is now an inn which you must not despise though it does happen to be somewhat tourist. It is only open for the end of June, July, August, and September, though one can sleep there at other times of the year if one asks at Prades for the housekeeper; he comes down to that town through the winter and is known there.
In Perpignan (by the way) go to the chief hotel, for the hotels of that plain can be very vile when they try. This hotel is called “The Grand” and it stands on the quay of the smaller river just within the old fortifications. There is a delightful little restaurant in Perpignan called the Golden Lion, it is well to order what one wants some hours beforehand, and to take their own recommendation about wine. Perpignan is so twirled and knotted a town that I can give no directions for finding that Golden Lion, where it lies in its little back alley called the Rue des Cardeurs, save to tell you that it is but 200 yards from your hotel, and that the Rue des Cardeurs is the second on the left as you walk away from the main front of the cathedral; or again, the first on the left after you have crossed the Place Gambetta. Anyhow, Perpignan is a small place and anyone will show you where this eating-house is, and it is a good one. Down the Cerdagne in Spain, at Seo de Urgel, there are two or three hotels, and one of the second class called the Posada Universal or Universal Inn which merits its name; you will do well to stop there for it has a pleasant balcony overlooking the valley, with vines trained about it; and the people look after you.
As to the inns of Andorra your best plan is to stop in the capital, that is, in Andorra The Old itself, where the Posada is called the Posada Calounes, and is quite a little and simple place. The entry into Andorra, however, is not always easy. If you make it from the north, mist may delay you, even on the grassy Embalire Pass, and may keep you for hours on the higher crossings of the range, even when it does not defeat you altogether. You may therefore have no choice but to stop at one of the little villages; but it is a poor fate, for they are full of bugs and fleas and appalling cooking, though the people are kindly enough. The inn at Encamps is the only one with which I am myself acquainted among these smaller places; there also it is vile.
I have omitted so far to speak of the inns in the Sobrarbe. That of Venasque is the largest and most used to travellers. Like all Spanish inns the life of the people is upstairs and the life of the animals below. It is clean and seems to be continually full of people, for there is quite a traffic to and from this mountain town. The inn has no name in particular that I know of, but you cannot miss it. Guide books call it “Des Touristes,” but I never heard anyone in Venasque give it that name. You have but to ask for the Posada, however, and anyone will show it you. It is in the first street on the left out of the main street as you come into the town. As to the cost of it, it is neither cheap nor dear; but (as I have said is common to the Spanish inns) it is a little on the side of dearness. A friend of mine with three companions and two mules found himself let in for over £3 for one night’s hospitality; on the other hand, I myself, some years after, with two companions, passed two nights and the day between with everything that we wanted to eat, smoke, and drink, and we came out for under £2. The mules perhaps consume.
In all Sobrarbe there are but the inns of Bielsa and Torla (I mean in all the upper valleys which I have described) that can be approached without fear, and in Bielsa, as in Venasque and in Torla, the little place has but one. At Bielsa it is near the bridge and is kept by Pedro Perlos; I have not slept in it but I believe it to be clean and good. El Plan has a Posada called the Posada of the Sun (del Sol), but it is not praised; nay, it is detested by those who speak from experience. The inn that stands or stood at the lower part of the Val d’Arazas is said to be good; that at Torla is not so much an inn as an old chief’s house or manor called that of “Viu,” for that is the name of the family that owns it. They treat travellers very well.
This is all that I know of the inns of the Pyrenees.
VIII
THE APPROACHES TO THE PYRENEES
A traveller from England, on considering his approach to the Pyrenees, must first appreciate the road heads or starting-places whence his travels to the Pyrenees may be made, and it is convenient to regard that one to which access can be had by rail. These points are eleven in number—St. Jean Pied-de-Port, Mauléon, Oloron, Laruns, Argelès, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Arreau, Bagnères-de-Luchon, St. Girons, Foix, and Villefranche, which last is the highest point to which the rail will take one from Perpignan.
One can get nearer the main range by light railways in certain places. Thus from Mauléon a steam tramway will take one some miles nearer the hills, to Tardets. From Lourdes the train goes up the valley several miles, and light railways go to Cauterets and Luz, and from Foix there is a considerable reach of rail, as far as Ax-les-Thermes, all up the valley of the Ariège, from which lateral valleys on every side enter the high mountains. Nevertheless, if one knows how to approach these eleven stations, and something of the hours of arriving at them, the slight extensions in the three cases named can easily be looked up, and there is no need to burden these pages with them.