Toot! Toot! All aboard.

Friday 9th June 

One last hurrah into the Pyrenees. We picked up a leaflet on our travels about a tourist train ride into the Pyrenees - the yellow train, sometimes called the canary. We decided this would be a good last day viewing the scenery with Rob being able to look, rather than have to concentrate on the driving.

We were able to purchase tickets online, rather than drive to where we had to catch the train and hope it wasn't booked out. Woke this morning though to overcast skies, and the forecast of afternoon thunderstorms.  Not the ideal day to be heading in to the mountains for viewing the scenery. It rained as we headed to the station, but once we got there the rain cleared and the clouds were moving away.

It turned out to be a perfect day. Lots of photos.

The trip is a 3hr ride, about 50k, and winds around the sides of the mountains, sort of following the valley carved out by the river Tet which was sometimes 200 - 300 m below the train line. There was also a road that sort of followed the same path, and ended up in Andorra. The train line was built early in the 1900s to link the Catalan plateau to the rest of the region. Lots of tunnels and bridges crossing deep gorges.

Fort Liberia above Villefranche de Conflent, built by Vauban in 1681.

Going ta-tas.

The Canary.

Bolquere station - highest SNCF station in France.

One of the impressive bridges we crossed.

The terrain on the trip is sort of in two parts. The first part is steep, and forested, rocky gorges; inhospitable, and inaccessible, but stunning scenery. At the highest point on the trip (1592 m, and the highest SNCF station in France) the terrain changed to an undulating mountain plateau with grazing and cropping. There was also a large solar project in the area with many solar farms. 

The main road heading west to Andorra from Perpignan.

The last of the snow.

The train runs all year round and in summer they have the open carriages so you can get the full experience. We didn't travel in the open carriages as there was still some cloud around and storms had been forecast.

One of the stations along the way. There are 22 stations -
the train stops at about half of them, and the other half it will stop on demand.

The train ride finished in La Tour de Carol where you can catch a train to Barcelona in Spain, Toulouse in France, Paris,  or back to Perpignan. We found we were only 45k south of where we had stayed last weekend.

We had 2 hours at the end, enough time for lunch at the Cafe at the station - where they hadn't taken advantage of the tourists and hiked the prices. A quiet trip back down with a nap along the way. The drive back to Perpignan was relatively easy and quick until about 10k out when we drove in to a huge thunderstorm with torrential rain. Glad it didn't impact our lovely day out.

Time to go home.

La Tour de Carol - last stop.