Latour-de-Carol: The Station of Three Gauges on the Spanish Border

Required Activities

• Walk the platforms at Latour-de-Carol–Enveitg and find all three gauges in the same station — standard, metre and Iberian, which no other station in France has, since Hendaye and Cerbère manage only two — then work out which of the three direct-current supplies, 1.5 kV, 3 kV or 850 V, feeds each of them, and look for the side third rail that powers the Cerdagne line

• Ride the Train Jaune east off the end of the metre-gauge Cerdagne line and tick off three things from the window: Bolquère-Eyne, the highest station on the whole SNCF network at 1,592 m, the 236-metre masonry arches of the Pont Séjourné, and seven kilometres further the Pont Gisclard, the last railway suspension bridge in France still carrying trains

• Cross the border into Puigcerdà, founded by Alfonso II of Aragon about 1177 and made capital of Cerdagne in place of Llívia, and find the bell tower of Santa Maria standing alone — the 12th-century church beneath it was pulled down in the anarchist months of 1936 and never rebuilt

• Go round the convent of Sant Domènec, founded in 1290, and the Museu Cerdà, then walk down to where the Carol runs into the Segre below the town — the stream that gives Latour-de-Carol its name, joining the river that will end up in the Ebro