Ermitage Notre-Dame de Font-Romeu
Perched on a rocky outcrop above the town, this 17th-century hermitage is Font-Romeu's spiritual heart and its finest natural balcony — on a clear day the entire Cerdagne plain stretches before you like a tawny patchwork quilt framed by the snowy Carlit massif.
The hermitage and its legend
According to local tradition, a shepherd discovered a statue of the Virgin Mary hidden in a spring here in the early 1700s, and a sanctuary was built around it. The ornate Baroque camaril — a gilded chamber housing the statue — was carved by the Catalan sculptor Joseph Sunyer and is considered a masterpiece of religious folk art.
Every September the statue is carried in a torchlit procession down to the collegiate church in Odello for winter, and returned to the hermitage in May in a colourful festival called the Translació, drawing pilgrims from both sides of the Pyrenees.
The view and the walk
The terrace in front of the chapel looks south over the whole Cerdagne plateau at 1,800 m altitude — you can pick out Llívia (the Spanish enclave), the silver flash of the solar furnace and, on exceptional days, the distant Sierra del Cadí in Catalonia.
A signed forest trail from the town centre reaches the hermitage in about 20 minutes through fragrant Scots pine. Combine it with the short loop to the Calvaire (Stations of the Cross) carved into the granite boulders behind the chapel for a full hour of effortless walking.
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