If the Hautes Pyrenees evoke above all the mountain and nature, they are also full of more epicurean pleasures ... 

Delicious regional specialties await you, which will make your stay all the darkest and authentic. Whether you are sweet or salty, rather entry or dessert, you will enjoy it!

The La Source chalet is a partner of many businesses close to producers , so do not hesitate to visit them!

Savory specialties

Confit and foie gras
The goose or duck confit and foie gras are the great Haut-Pyrenean classics. Very practical, we cook them in any season and any occasion!

La Garbure
A winter dish, from Béarn: an invigorating soup, a unique dish combining seasonal vegetables and Tarbais beans, simmered with confit and the country's ham bone, the famous "Camayou".

Bigorre black pork
one of the most famous culinary specialties of the Pyrenees, being subject to a protected designation (AOP). This black pork, cousin of the Iberian pata Negra, is raised in the open air where it is essentially feeding on acorns and chestnuts. Its parsley meat with exceptionally fragrant fat, gives very typical hams and cold meats.

The sheep of Barèges-Gavarnie
This so-called Barégeoise race exists only in its appellation of protected origin (AOP). Well suited to the pastures and climate of the Toy country, its meat is exceptional, fine and fragrant. Each year at the end of September, Luz Saint-Sauveur organizes his famous "chop fair" where you can taste delicious grills.

The trout of the Pyrenees
A special mention to this fish farming of rainbow trout and Fario, founded in Argeles Gazosts more than 50 years ago. In the cold and pure waters of the Gave de Pau, the trout grow slowly, their flesh being therefore particularly tasty and not very fat.

Tarbais bean
This white bean with fine skin and fndent flesh is protected by a red label and a protected geographical indication (IGP). Delicious in cassoulet, in garbure or as an accompaniment to a square of lamb, or even cold in salads with basil.

The soft onion of Trébons
This ancient variety, specific to Bigorre, is currently in demand for protected geographical indication (IGP). With a sweet and sweet flavor, this onion is consumed throughout the year, both raw and cooked.

Sweet specialties

The pie of the Pyrenees, nature or with blueberries
is a flower -shaped pastry, soft to heart and crisp on the outside, often covered with icing sugar. Funny, each village, each craftsman has his recipe and claims to hold the original ... The best is to test and compare!
Interesting point: this cake is kept very well for several days, it is the ideal gift to bring back to your loved ones! 

The spit cake
another party cake, typical of the Pyrenees. Its particular appearance comes from the preparation mode, which requires several hours: the liquid dough (a kind of pancake dough) is poured on a conical mold which turns on the spit, above the fire. By solidifying, it forms a multitude of delicious little spikes with a taste of rum, or vanilla, or orange blossom, depending on the recipes.
There is even a brotherhood of the spitting cake in Arreau, which organizes the spit of the spit.

Pyrenees honeys
There are so many varieties that it is impossible to list them all: heather, linden, chestnut, acacia, thyme, and rare honeys, from micro-terroirs with exceptional biodiversity . Come and taste the organic honeys of the Hautes Pyrénées, prepared by beekeepers respectful of the environment and natural cycles of the bees .

The Berlingots of Cauterets
This Nantes specialty of small sweet and colorful candies, was imported into the thermal stations of the Pyrenees, where they allowed to reduce the pronounced taste of sulfur water. At the golden age of thermalism, Cauterets counted up to a dozen berlingot factories. Since then they have remained a beautiful tradition, a souvenir specialty declined today in dozens of flavors.

Cheeses

These are first, the essentials sheep  , goat or cow, or mixtures of milks, and their infinite variety of flavors and referrals.
The best known is undoubtedly the Tomme des Pyrénées (IGP) , cow cheese with pasteurized milk, with golden (natural) or black crust (covered with a layer of black paraffin).

Goat, fresh and gentle, or dry and stronger goat crottins depending on refining, nature or aromatic herbs.

The Ossau Iraty (PDO) , whole milk cheese from sheep with hazelnut notes.

Regional wines and craft beers

Madiran wine , tannic and full -bodied red wine that perfectly accompanies traditional dishes and cheeses in the country: garbure, red meats, sauce dishes, duck breast, duck confit or Pyrenees cheese.

The Pacherenc and the Jurançon, soft or dry white wines. The softness will excel with foie gras or sheep cheese, the dry will marry with fish, raw vegetables, light cold meats and white meats.

For beer enthusiasts: the craft beers of the Brasserie du Pays Toy and the Brasserie du Pays des Gaves produced locally, are served in bars and Cauterets , and available from the village retailers (CARREFOUR Mountain, Cave SEPET).

These two breweries are located about twenty minutes from the chalet. They have a store on site, with the possibility of visiting the brasserie (on RV).

To taste these delicious regional specialties, while enjoying a wonderful stay in the Hautes Pyrénées, do not hesitate to contact the La Source chalet !

In each village, each region, there are people who mark history.

Prosper Demontzey, undeniably, is of this caliber. By directing  the gigantic consolidation works of Mount which threatened to collapse on the thermal baths of Cauterets, at the end of the 19th century, Demontzey saved the economic future of the village.

By this blow of radiance and other sites of the same type, this engineer of genius was the precursor of the techniques of restoration of the land in the mountains.

1884, the future of the spa station in danger

From the 1820s, thermalism took off in the Pyrenees . Cauterets opened its first modern thermal baths to La Raillère in 1828 . The thermal baths of Cesar (1844), the thermal baths of Pauze-Vieux (1853) and the neo-onlymes (1879) followed. The thermal stations become a holiday resort for high society , and spa guests fill the palaces.

But in the spring of 1884, the future of the Raillère thermal baths suddenly darkened. For several days, large blocks of granite stand out from Mont Péguère , and come to hole the roof of establishments like cannonballs. Of course, spa guests flee ...

The steep slopes which overlook the thermal baths of the Raillère, made of limestone and granite, are indeed subject to frequent falls of stones and avalanches .  Natural instability aggravated by deforestation (for firewood) and regular ice samples in this area near the village.

Engineer Demontzey called to the mountain bedside

The engineer Prosper Demontzey , head of the general inspection of the restoration of mountain land (RTM). is urgently dispatched to examine the situation.

He recommends a simple principle remedy, but which requires enormous work: it is a question of stabilizing the terrain , by combining the reforestation and the creation of stored grassy lawns , on stands supported by huge stone walls. For reforestation, he recommends planting larches, non -endemic but very solid conifers.

Fortunately for Cauterets, since the laws of Napoleon III of July 1860 on mountain reforestations, and thanks to the taste of the Emperor for the Pyrenees, Demontzey has all the authority and the funds necessary to carry out his work.

He will also exhibit a model at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889. His project will have a strong impression, then earning him the visit of many celebrities, on the site.

A Herculean project

Like other major Pyrenean works at the end of the 19th century, such as the Napoleon bridge in Luz or the Pic du Midi de Bigorre , the consolidation of Mont Péguère is worthy of the works of Hercules!

The work begins in 1885. First of all, an access path is fitted out: it is no less than 78 laces (still numbered!) Which thus come to mesh on the southeast flank of Mont Péguère, supplemented by a shelter in stone for workers.

The Combe Storing Staked work began in 1886. The surrounding rock was used, carved on site and transported to the back of a man or by a small cable car fitted out by the RTM. Dry stone retaining walls are created, nursery bands are developed for reforestation and commitment.

The grassy cover is taken from the Cambasque slope : squares of herbs are thus cut and replanted in the north east valley. The beginnings of lawn transplantation!

This painful and slow work motivates in 1888 the installation of a mini railway. This, brought into spare parts and mounted on site, allows the circulation between the two slopes, of wagons carrying grass plates and blocks of stone.

This titanic project will last more than 10 years, until 1892, creating colossal walls, fed 7 km of Muletier path and 14 km of forest trails.

The Cauteresian scholar Alphonse Meillon will write about Prosper Demontzey:

“He pansed the injury of the mountain. There he made the blocks left that wanted to go away; Here, he "under mura" those who still held; Further on, he planted grass on sandy surfaces; Elsewhere, he built stone coverings ”.

Precursor of modern reforestation techniques, author of several treaties on the subject and renamed far beyond our borders, Demontzey was truly a benefactor for the thermal station of Cauterets. The hiking trail at the foot of Mont Péguère, and a stele on the edge of the forest near the Ceriset cascade, today honor its memory.

Mount Péguère and Raillère today

The buildings designed by Demontzey are still very present and still hold , even if during the 130 years that followed, it was necessary to continue them: it was first by concrete formwork, later by concrete injected under pressure, and Steel nets stretched on the wall upstream of the trace of the Raillère. Even today, the administration is still closely monitors this mountain!

Las, faced with the risk of persistent landslides, it was necessary to resolve to permanently close the thermal baths in 1997.
The building of 3,200 m2 was however preserved, witness to the thermal history of Cauterets and the Art Nouveau architecture. La Raillère also retains its small station, testimony to the old tramway.

In 2019, the Saint-Savin union commission sold the Russian artist thermes to the Russian artist Andrei Molodkin, already installed in Hautes-Pyrénées since 2014, in the former foundry of Maubourguet, which has become the place of experimental art "The Foundry ”.

For the same security reasons, since 2008 a municipal decree has prohibited hikers access to the Péguère pegue . This decree is still in force today. Too bad because, from up there, the 360 ​​° view is absolutely incredible! See the photos were taken before the ban, by Jean-Paul and by Mariano : from the top of the peak, we admire the entire Lac de Gaube valley to the north face of the vignemale!

Hopefully that one day, the Demontzey laces can be climbed again, to the delight of hikers!

Often the quotes of this magnificent poem by Victor Hugo are summed up a few words, at best one line ... Here it is, in Extenso - to read aloud at the foot of the giant ... 

In summer 1843, during his “trip to the Pyrenees”, Victor Hugo discovered the Cirque de Gavarnie.

A site that will mark him forever, as he will mark many Pyreneists, such as Franz Schrader who signs this engraving.

Twelve years later, he evokes the memory of Gavarnie in the long poem “God”, thus finishing the triptych started with the legend of centuries.

Under his pen, the circus becomes a gigantic amphitée, a cosmic battlefield where the voice of the creation of the world is heard.

Gavarnie

When you have passed the Dourroucats bridge and you are only a quarter of an hour of Gèdre, two mountains suddenly go away and, in whatever way you concern the approach of Gavarnie, You discover an unexpected thing. 

You may have visited the Alps, the Andes, the Cordillera; You have had the Pyrenees for a few weeks under your eyes; Whatever you could see, what you see now is like nothing about what you have encountered elsewhere. So far you have seen mountains; You have contemplated growths of all forms, of all heights; You have explored green rumps, slopes of gneiss, marble or shale, precipices, rounded or serrated peaks, glaciers, forests of fir trees mixed with clouds, granite needles, ice needles; But, I repeat, you have not seen anywhere you see right now on the horizon. 

In the middle of the capricious curves of the mountains bristling with obtuse angles and acute angles, abruptly appear straight lines, simple, calm, horizontal or vertical, parallel or cutting up with right angles, and combined so that their whole results The brilliant, real figure penetrated with azure and sun, of an impossible and extraordinary object. 

Is it a mountain? But what mountain has ever presented these rectilinear surfaces, these regular plans, these rigorous parallelisms, these strange symmetries, this geometric aspect? Is it a wall? Here are towers indeed that contrast it and support it, here are slots, these are the cornices, the architraves, the foundations and the stones that the gaze distinguishes and could almost count, these are two raw breaches and which awaken in the spirit of the ideas of seats, trenches and assaults; But these are also snow, large snow bands placed on these foundations, on these slots, on these architraves and on these towers; We are in the heart of summer and noon; They are therefore eternal snow; Now, what wall, what human architecture has ever risen to the scary level of eternal snow? Babel, the effort of the whole human race, has sagged on itself before having reached it. 

What is this inexplicable object which cannot be a mountain and which has the height of the mountains, which cannot be a wall and which has the shape of the walls? 

It is a mountain and a wall at the same time; It is the most mysterious building of the most mysterious architects; It is the colossum of nature; It's Gavarnie. 

Published this magnificent silhouette as it is first revealed at a distance of three leagues: a long and dark wall whose all the protrusion, all the wrinkles are marked by snow lines, all the platforms bear glaciers. Towards the middle, two large towers; One who is at the Levant, square and turning one of his angles to France; the other who is sunset, fluted as if it was less a tower than a wreath of turrets; Both covered in snow. On the right, two deep notches, the gaps, which cut into the wall like two vases that the clouds accuse; Finally, always on the right and at the western end, a sort of huge pleated rim of a thousand stands, which offers the eye, in monstrous proportions, what would be called in architecture the cut of an amphitheater. 

Represent yourself as I saw: the black wall, the black towers; brilliant snow, blue sky; One thing finally complete, large to the incredible, serene to the sublime. 

This is an impression that does not look like any other, so singular and so powerful at the same time that it erases everything else, and that one becomes for a few moments, even when this magic vision has disappeared in a turning point , indifferent to everything that is not her. 

The landscape around you is however admirable; You enter a valley where all the magnifies and all the graces wrap you. Two-storey villages, such as Tracy-le-Haut and Tracy-le-Bas, Gédre-Dessus and Gédre-dessous, with their staircases and their old Templar church, pelot and take place on the side of two mountains , along a white scum gave, under the cheerful and whimsical tufts of charming vegetation. All this is lively, lovely, happy, exquisite; It is Switzerland and the Black Forest that suddenly mixed with the Pyrenees. A thousand joyful noises come to you like the voices and words of this sweet landscape, bird songs, children's laughter, murmurs of the Gave, quivering leaves, soothed breaths of the wind. 

You don't see anything; You don't hear anything; Barely perceive this graceful together some doubtful and confused impression. The appearance of Gavarnie is always before your eyes, and radiates in your thought like these supernatural horizons that we sometimes see at the bottom of dreams. In the evening, coming back from Gavarnie, an admirable moment. From my window: a large mountain fills the earth; A large cloud fills the sky. Between the cloud and the mountain, a thin strip of twilight sky, clear, lively, clear, and sparkling Jupiter, golden pebble in a silver stream. Nothing more melancholy and more reassuring and more beautiful than this small point of light between these two blocks of darkness.

Victor Hugo, 1855

A colossus shaped by a glacier 20,000 years ago

"Immense stone trunk" which saw the creation of the world ... Victor Hugo was right! 20,000 years ago, there was a glacier who descended from Gavarnie to Lourdes. Its enormous mass dug the valley and carved the rock, propeling ocher and gray limestone land, more than 3000 meters above sea level.

The circus is made up of 16 concentric peaks, more than 3,000 meters above sea level : Pic du Taillon (3144 m), Pic du helmet, Pic de l'Epaule, Pic de la Tour, Pic du Marboré (3248 m), from the Gabiétou, from Astazous ... to the sublime Mont Perd (3355 m).

Only the famous “Roland breach”, with multiple legends , breaks this symmetry, offering a passage to Spain - the Gavarnie circus marks the border between the French Pyrenees, and the Aragon.

Many waterfalls plummer steep walls, the most important of which, the large cascade of Gavarnie high of 422 meters.

In 1997, the Massif du Mont Perda, of which the Gavarnie circus was a part of UNESCO World Heritage, was a double title of natural and cultural landscape - this site also marking a long tradition of pastoralism between Aragonese and French villages.

The Cirque de Gavarnie has become the meeting point of the Pyreneists - some of which have the privilege of resting in the face of this natural wonder, in the Gavarnie cemetery - illustrating in the best way, the inseparable physical experience of the mountains, to emotion Aesthetics and artistic lived in the Pyrenees.

Come and visit this wonder of nature, find the breath of the Pyreneists, staying at the Chalet La Source !

Because we appreciate a place even more when you know its story, take a few hours to discover the fascinating village of Cauterets. A true architectural gem, it will delight your eyes and your heart. In Cauterets, the story is everywhere!

"The place to be" ... a worldly thermal city from the 19th century

Cauterets is the witness of the beautiful period of the end of the 19th century, where the whole-Paris descended in the Pyrenees to "take the waters" and admire the romantic beauty of the mountains.

The thermal virtues of the waters of Cauterets were already renowned in Paris from the first empire: in the early 1800s, Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland and Queen Hortense came to take the baths.

This notoriety with a wealthy clientele has continued to develop throughout the 19th century; It continued at the beginning of the 20th century when many other seaside cities were declining. On more than a century, countless personalities, crowned heads, artists, writers, politicians, are stayed there: George Sand, Alfred de Vigny, Chateaubriand, the Duke of Aumale, Victor Hugo, Thiers, Taine, Napoleon III and Eugénie, Gabriel Fauré, Alphonse XIII, Edouard VII, Sarah Bernhardt, Maurice Chevalier, Edgar Degas, Léon Blum, Louis Berliot…

The Entertainment Center: The Egg Esplanade

This large place was the flagship place of the worldly Cauterets of the time - the place where you had to see and be seen! Built in 1864, it holds this strange name with the sulfur smell released by thermal waters.

It is from this magnificent esplanade, extended by a charming public garden, that we best admire the architectural elegance of Cauterets, the contrast between the urban planning of the 19th century and the natural setting of the surrounding summits.

The surrounding buildings bear witness to the leisure activities that occupied the wealthy customers of yesteryear: the former casino (today cinema) where shows were played, the kiosk where concerts took place, a magnificent walk under the arcades of Eiffel style whose Dôme comes from the 1900 Universal Exhibition, and finally a hotel, the very first built in Cauterets: the promenade hotel later became the Regina hotel.

Monumental hotels and master houses

Theater of the famous Flowers of the 19th century flowers, which developed at the end of the 19th century in the thermal stations of the Pyrenees, Boulevard Latapie Flurin welcomes the most luxurious and monumental buildings of Cauterets. Their comfort was absolutely improbable for the time: hydraulic elevators, running water on all floors, central heating, opulent rooms, smoking ...

Starting from the egg esplanade, it is first of all the Hotel of England. Inaugurated in 1878, it was one of the largest in the Pyrenees with 300 bedrooms, a huge room under sumptuous chandeliers and a large dome. It is today a residence for individuals. Its Louis XV style restaurant built a little later in 1900, became the headquarters of the 1900 museum where the outfits, utensils and tableware of the time are presented.

Further on, the large continental hotel - also huge with more than 200 rooms - is a wonder of architecture. Inaugurated in 1882, it was designed as an Italian palace with interior courtyard, cariatid facade and carved heads - they would represent famous women of the time. It has since been transformed into apartments.

Flurin houses

The Flurin family, whose main boulevard bears the name, is one of the oldest in the Cauterets valley. Over several generations, this family has marked Cauteresian history by developing thermal medicine and actively contributing to the economic development of the city.

You can admire along the avenue du Mamelon Vert, two large houses built by the Flurin family at the end of the 19th century: the chalet of ashs, with its bricks and red woodwork, and Castelgayard, in Angoulême stone, Inspired by the Pau Castle.

An isba in Cauterets: the galitzine chalet, or blue chalet

Just near the esplanade, in the turn that goes up to the Spanish bridge, your attention is drawn to a strange blue chalet, of Slavic inspiration, with crazy charm although strangles in a Pyrenean village!

It was in 1840 that Russian princess Galitzine bought land on the left bank of Gave, virgin of any building. The princess built a set of buildings, including an ISBA, extended by another house embellished with an Orthodox chapel and a four -story tower with a pepper roof.

The whole was connected to the blue chalet by bridges, now deleted. The legend says that the princess welcomed her lovers in each of the tower floors, they joined the villa by these bridges, without any possibility of crossing!

The construction of the Hôtel d'Angleterre a few years later, by obscuring the view of the valley, finally led the princess to sell her property. She never returned.

The station: Norwegian mountain atmosphere

This construction, which is one of the oldest in the city, is very surprising in its atypical mountain look decor Western.

It is a reproduction of the Norway pavilion of the Universal Exhibition of 1889 , transferred and built identically in early 1900 - in kit and only two months! - A real feat given the size of the building.

This was necessary to bring the spa guests in increasing number, to the thermal baths then located towards the Pont d'Espagne. This station hosted the first electric train in France, a rack train which slowly led them to their care….

This station has kept its beautiful green metallic frame and its stone porch, and a marquise where there is a clock that has always worked since its creation.

Closed in 1949, it now houses the offices of the bus station and a theater. The building has been registered since 1981 as historic monuments.

The thermal baths of Caesar

We end this visit with these historic thermal baths, built in several stages in the 19th century. The architecture takes up the codes of marble and columns of Roman architecture . At the location of the rock baths, the thermal baths dedicated to children was formerly, whose facade of the time was preserved.

This is an opportunity to go back to the history of Cauteresian hydrotherapy, which started well before this golden age.

From the 12th century, Cauterets was renowned for its warm waters , whose baths were arranged by the monks. Its waters are renowned to treat sciatica, ulcers, drop and even deafness.

It was in the 16th century that this reputation grew up, already - thanks to the influence of a personality: Marguerite de Navarre, who frequently stayed there from 1541 to 1549.

In 1605, the King had a general superintendence of the Kingdom's Baths and Fountains created. Several intendant water doctors will then follow one another and study the thermal properties of Cauterets waters.
It was in 1714 that Jean-François Borie wrote the first work "The research of the mineral waters of Cauterets with the way of using it".

If the qualities of Cauterets waters are recognized, its supply leaves something to be desired. The work to routing by channels began in 1800, but it was not until the middle of the 19th century, thanks to the mastery of the techniques of capturing sources , so that their waters finally reach the thermal baths without losing their therapeutic qualities.

The La Source chalet awaits you to organize your stay, and take full advantage of this magnificent village. Do not hesitate to contact!