South of Luz-St-Sauveur, and a further 8km up the ravine from Gèdre, GAVARNIE is connected with Luz by two daily bus services (Mon, Thurs & Sat only outside July & Aug), though you can walk it on the higher variant of the GR10 from Cauterets in two days. Either way you'll avoid the €3 levied on all drivers entering the huge car park at the entrance to the village. Once poor and depopulated, Gavarnie has found the attractions of mass tourism, much of it the excursion trade from Lourdes, too seductive to resist, and is now an unpleasant mess of pricey accommodation, souvenir shops and mediocre snack bars. The main street stinks, too, from the droppings of the dozens of mules, donkeys and horses used to ferry visitors up into the cirque. However, the cirque itself – Victor Hugo called it "Nature's Colosseum" – is magnificent, a natural amphitheatre scoured out by a glacier. Nearly 1700m high, it consists of three sheer bands of rock discoloured by the striations of seepage and waterfalls, and separated by sloping ledges covered with snow. To the east, it's dominated by the jagged peaks of Astazou and Marboré, both over 3000m. In the middle, a corniced ridge sweeps round to Le Taillon, hidden behind the Pic des Sarradets, which stands slightly forward of the rim of the cirque, obscuring the Brèche de Roland, a curious vertical slash, 100m deep and about 60m wide, said to have been hewn from the ridge by Roland's sword, Durandal. In winter, there's good skiing for beginners and intermediates at the nearby, nineteen-run resort of Gavarnie-Gèdre, with great views of the cirque from the top point of 2400m.
Pages in section ‘Gavarnie’: Practicalities, Cirque and around, La Brèche de Roland.
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