Luchon: The Queen of the Pyrenees, the Vaporarium and the Superbagnères Gondola

Required Activities

• Sit out a session in the Vaporarium at the Thermes de Luchon, the natural steam galleries driven into the mountain rock that the spa calls the only one of their kind in Europe, then swim in the rooftop thermal pool — the water comes from over eighty springs tapped in the Superbagnères mountain at between 22 and 67 degrees

• Walk the Allées d'Étigny from end to end and finish at the statue in front of the Thermes, raised in 1889 to Baron Mégret d'Étigny — the intendant who forced a carriage road through here in 1759, reorganised the baths, and died ruined and disgraced at 47 with the town he invented named after him

• Ride the Crémaillère Express from the middle of Luchon to the Superbagnères plateau in eight minutes, a valley lift that took over in December 2023 from the 1993 gondola and, before that, the Strub rack railway that climbed this mountain from 1912 to 1966 — the old trackbed is still walkable beside you

• Find the orientation table a few hundred metres from the top station and use it to pick the Pic d'Aneto, 3,404 m and over the border in Spain, out of the Maladeta massif; then walk to the far end of the big car park by the Grand Hôtel, where the whole of Luchon lies below you 1,170 m down