Sightseeing along the way
Les Thermes de César and Les Bains du Rocher
Right from the start of the walk you can admire this elegant building opened in 1844. At the time it was regarded as one of the finest in the Pyrenees with its monumental façade sporting three porticoes and fine marble entrance steps leading up to an immense lobby. Since those days the spa has undergone a series of transformations, extensions and improvements to accommodate the new treatment programmes dispensed there and improve patient comfort. This building is where all the town’s ENT, respiratory-tract and rheumatology treatments are provided.
Les Thermes de César are open all year round and take adult and paediatric patients from February to November.
Next door to the treatment spa is the new Bains du Rocher recreational spa. At the end of your walk, we suggest you stop off there for a delightful moment’s relaxation in the thermal water and a chance to enjoy the superb, elegant surroundings.
Les Thermes de Pauze
These baths, now closed, are all that remains of the original village that grew up around the springs. In those days people came to take the waters in wooden huts. This building was opened in 1853 and for a long time this was the most popular spring after the one at La Raillère. From here there is a splendid view down to the village of Cauterets with its many monuments. You can take the time to appreciate its beauty on your way back.
The Chemin des Pères
This more-or-less flat path at 1,200 metres altitude is of historical importance since it follows the course of the old Broca channel that supplied Cauterets with water from the Pradet spring. It takes you to another of Cauterets’ spa sites: La Raillère, at the meeting point of the Lutour and Marcadau Valleys, a place full of foxgloves, columbines and the promise of wild countryside.
The Cascade du Lutour
Formerly known as the Cascade de Pisse-Arros, this waterfall is best viewed from the footbridge below it over which the path passes. It is particularly spectacular in the spring. These are picturesque surroundings indeed, with water torrents everywhere, and the area was popular with the Romantic artists of the 19th century. From here you join – for less than a hundred metres – the ‘Sentier des Cascades’ that leads from the village of Cauterets to the Pont d’Espagne.
The thermal spas at La Raillère
The spa at La Raillère was built in the late 18th century. Today it remains closed due to the risk of rock falls from the mountain that dominates it, the Péguère.
In 1807 this establishment was frequented by Queen Hortense, the wife of Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I.
You also pass close by Le Petit St-Sauveur Spa, renamed Les Thermes des Griffons, which is today a Rheumatology Centre, and the old Bains du Bois spa, also now closed.
The hamlet of La Raillère was once also a very popular excursion destination. Visitors would travel here on horseback, by barouche or in a sedan chair, along the Promenade Demontzey, a practically horizontal path which you take to return to the village.
The Route des Cascades passes through this area on the way to the Pont d’Espagne and from there up to the Lac de Gaube, and is today still popular with tourists and spa patients alike.
Cauterets and its iconic monuments:
- The Casino and Galerie de l’Esplanade des Oeufs
The vast Les Œufs spa, today the Casino, was opened in 1869. The ground floor was a spa, with a 20-metre pool of sulphurous water, and the first floor was home to the Casino and two events-halls-cum-ballrooms. The shady esplanade, with its bandstand and covered walkway, was a popular haunt of bathers, who would come here in the afternoon and evening to listen to the Casino orchestra or attend the parties thrown there.
- The Galerie de l'Esplanade des Œufs is an impressive building with significant Art Nouveau features. It is thought to have once been part of a pavilion in the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, dismantled, transported here and rebuilt opposite the Casino.
The Western-style railway station
The curious wooden railway station you come to on the edge of the village dates from 1898, the year the Lourdes-Cauterets railway line was opened. Because of its unusual façades and roof, it was listed as a Historical Monument on 18 December 1981. It was originally the Norway Pavilion at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, but was moved and rebuilt here.
Practical information
Start and end point Les Thermes de César (Cauterets)
Length 6 km
Duration 2 hrs 30
Total ascent 266 metres (from 920 to 1,186 m altitude)
Waymarking White and red (GR10®) and then signposts
Level Intermediate
Best time of year April to October
Getting there
Cauterets is 203 km from Toulouse, via the A64 (E09) as far as Tarbes then the N21 to Lourdes and finally the D821
Information
Cauterets Tourist Office
Tel.: +33 (0)5 62 92 50 50 http://www.cauterets.com
An easy walk starting in Cauterets and running through a remarkable forest full of gushing torrents on the edge of the Pyrenees National Park.
Cauterets, a charming village on the edge of the Pyrenees National Park, is a popular year-round holiday resort.
In winter and spring it is known for its skiing, boasting one of the best snow records in the world thanks to its favourable location high in the heart of the Pyrenees.
In spring, summer and autumn people come here to soak up the benefits of the thermal springs and explore the wild and stunningly beautiful countryside of the national park.
A thermal spa resort with a rich architectural heritage
Famous as early as the Middle Ages for its thermal waters, Cauterets gets its name from the Gascon patois word ‘cataourès’, meaning hot-water spring, which is itself derived from the Latin caldarium (cauldron or steam room).
In the 16th century the village came to the attention of the Royal Court and was visited by Marguerite de Navarre, sister of Francis I. Later, in the 19th century, all of Parisian high society would come to spend the summer in Cauterets.
It is this period that gave us the grand hotels and monumental façades with carved caryatids that give Cauterets the character it has today:
Les Thermes de César, Le Grand Hôtel d'Angleterre, Le Grand Hôtel Continental, et al.
George Sand, Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, Sarah Bernhardt and the imperial family (Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie) all came here, as did the miracle child of Lourdes, Bernadette Soubirous, who was treated here for asthma several times in 1858 and 1859.
Still today, ‘taking the waters’ in Cauterets is a must. Patients follow treatment programmes in Cauterets for ENT disorders (especially in children) and osteoarthritis and other rheumatic conditions.
With 6,000 patients enrolled in treatment programmes every year, Cauterets is Hautes Pyrénées’ second biggest spa town.
Cauterets: gateway to the Pyrenees National Park
Surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the Pyrenees (at 3,298 metres, Vignemale is the tallest peak in the French Pyrenees), the town of Cauterets is contained inside the narrow Gave de Cauterets Valley, which lies below the Marcadau and Lutour Valleys, two gems of the Pyrenees National Park.
admincrtmp - ITIMIP0650000062 - f83dccd9-6064-4383-889a-b701830accde - Tourist itineraries
ITIMIP0650000062