Vallée de Gavarnie & Cirque de Gavarnie
An hour's drive south of Tarbes, the Cirque de Gavarnie is a UNESCO World Heritage glacial amphitheatre so vast and so perfectly formed that Victor Hugo called it 'the Colosseum of nature.' Its walls rise nearly 1,500 metres in a single sheer sweep and are laced with waterfalls including the Grande Cascade, the tallest waterfall in France at 422 metres.
Getting to the Cirque
The village of Gavarnie (1,357 m) is the trailhead; from the car park a flat, well-marked path of 3.5 kilometres leads through meadows grazed by Pyrenean horses and isards (chamois) to the base of the cirque, with the waterfall growing steadily louder as you approach.
The walk is suitable for all fitness levels and most of the path is accessible to pushchairs; the round trip takes about 2.5 hours at a gentle pace, though you will inevitably stop every few minutes to photograph the increasingly dramatic scenery.
What You Will See
At the cirque's base in early summer, snow bridges still arch over meltwater streams and the Grande Cascade thunders down in a white column visible from the village. By late June the wildflower meadows around the path are carpeted in gentians, orchids and yellow arnica.
Griffon vultures — reintroduced to the Pyrenees in the 1990s — ride the thermals above the cirque walls in groups of a dozen or more, their three-metre wingspans making them unmistakeable even at altitude.
Beyond the Classic Walk
More ambitious walkers can continue on the GR10 long-distance trail up to the Brèche de Roland, a dramatic rectangular notch in the ridge wall at 2,807 metres that, according to legend, was cut by the paladin Roland with a single blow of his sword Durandal.
The village of Gavarnie itself has a handful of good mountain restaurants serving garbure (the hearty Pyrenean vegetable and confit soup) and local sheep's cheese — eat at Hôtel du Cirque et de la Cascade for a terrace view of the waterfall.
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