"More than a train station" a Latour-de-Carol Travel Page by mikey_e

Latour de Carol is not exactly what anyone would call a holiday or tourist destination, despite the fact that it welcomes several hundred if not thousand tourists every year. This is because the small town has the designation of being an “international train station” and is also the hub of train lines running from Barcelona, Toulouse and Perpignan (servicing the south, west and east lines respectively). That is, essentially, reason why I too came to Latour de Carol – because of the train station from which I first took a train to Bourg-Madame (le Train jaune, a tourist train that gives you great views of the mountains) in 2005, and then again in 2008 to catch a train to Toulouse (le TER, a regional train that also gives you great views of the mountains as you pass by the connection to Andorra).

To pretend, however, that Latour de Carol is simply a railway stop, however, is not fair. There is, in fact, a small town with some old buildings that exists about a 15 minute walk or so from the international train station. Few people make the hike there, since it is actually closer to walk into Enveitg if you are looking for a restaurant (although, on both occasions of my visit to Enveitg, I never saw either shops or a restaurant). Latour de Carol has some interesting little buildings, some of which preserve their original character, as well as a small bar and supermarket if you are looking to buy a few things to fortify you for the train or a hike.

There is another reason why you should consider coming to Latour de Carol, and it is the reason why I wandered into the old town the day before I departed for Toulouse. There is a Grand Randonée (GR) path that leads from the village into smaller settlements and out into the countryside that gives you a great view of the lands and mountains around Puigcerdà and this part of the Cerdanya. It’s not hard to find the signs pointing out the path and the way to Yravals, an even smaller holiday village from which the steeper part of the hike begins, but a map is always handy (you can buy them in Puigcerdà), especially since the trails aren’t always well marked once your out of the inhabited areas. Latour de Carol provides a good base for any trek, and in that way it is at least somewhat deserving of a little attention before you head out on the great French tradition of the Grande randonée.