Between Lourdes and Cauterets, some 3km southeast of the dull, congested town of Argelès-Gazost, pleasant, sleepy St-Savin merits a stop for its twelfth-century abbey-church, with later fortifications and a fine Romanesque doorway. The interior offers an interesting stoup, and an amusing organ cabinet carved with grotesque faces – supposedly those of damned souls – that were designed to grimace as the music played. For a fee of €1.50 you can view the treasury, installed in the vaulted former chapterhouse. Also worth a visit is the little hilltop chapel of Nôtre-Dame-de-Piétat (erratic hours; free), 1km south of the village, which has an elaborately painted ceiling, where birds perch on floral motifs covering every available space.
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