Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: Canfranc

"Pon Nou" means "New Bridge" - this structure replaces an older bridge. The older bridge had been destroyed by a flood of the Rio Aragon and this one was built in 1599, but looks much older. Actually the Pon Nou is "signed". There is a stone inscription, telling us "RAMON ME FECIT 1599"

Passing the ruins of the Iglesia de La Trinidad on an early morning. I learned that a wealthy merchant from Canfranc named Blasco de Les, founded (and financed) a church and a pilgrims´ hospital mid 16th century. This is rather late as the heydays of pilgrimage were some centuries earlier. The complex was abandoned mid 19th century and burned down in 1944.

"Canfranc International Railway Station" was opened in 1928, after a railway line, connecting France and Spain had been discussed since the 1850s, got finally completed. The line was opened, but never really sucessful. In 1970 a freight train derailed and destroyed a bridge on the French side of the Pyrenees. The bridge never got repaired - and the station is out of service ever since. Only two local trains leave this "palace", which is 240 meters long, every day. The huge tunnel, that was drilled through the Pyrenees for the railway line, houses the "Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc" meanwhile. Scientists there investigate neutrinos and WIMPS (= "Weakly interacting massive particles").

...unfortunately the by far biggest useless railway station worldwide - was under "reconstruction". It was finished in the 1920s and never was, what it was built for...