Photo : Pere López Brosa / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Mont-Louis
Mont-Louis is a fortified town of the Pyrénées-Orientales, built in 1679 by Vauban to control the new line of the border after the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Located at more than 1,500 metres' altitude, it is the highest stronghold in France and is part of the Fortifications of Vauban inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage.
The citadel, still occupied by the army, and the upper town, surrounded by ramparts, can be partly visited. You can walk round the fortifications, discover the chequerboard streets, the church, the Convicts' well and the solar furnace, an experimental solar energy research installation. Mont-Louis is also the starting point of the Yellow Train and of many hikes in Cerdanya and Capcir.
