Gavarnie-Gèdre

Cirque de Gavarnie

Gavarnie-Gèdre, municipality on the approach to the natural amphitheatre known as the Cirque de Gavarnie, in Hautes-Pyrénées département, Occitanie région, southwestern France. Gavarnie, lying on the French side of the Franco-Spanish frontier in the central Pyrenees at an elevation of 4,452 feet (1,357 metres) in the valley of the Gave (torrent) de Pau, was a resting place in medieval times for pilgrims traveling to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, which is one of the chief shrines of Christendom.

The Cirque de Gavarnie, about 2.5 miles (4 km) south of the village, is described by the 19th-century French writer Victor Hugo as “a mountain and a wall at the same time…the colosseum of nature.” From its floor, glacially eroded rock walls rise to about 5,000 feet (1,500 metres). It has three conspicuous terraces in which precipitous faces are succeeded upward by steep slopes of ice and snow. The Grande Cascade waterfall plunges about 1,400 feet (425 metres) from the eastern side. Above the amphitheatre are the high mountain summits of the Franco-Spanish frontier ridge, rising to nearly 11,000 feet (3,350 metres). Also conspicuous is the deep cleft known as the Brèche de Roland. Nearby is the Grotte Casteret, containing a frozen underground stream.

In 2016 the village of Gavarnie was merged with the neighbouring town of Gèdre to form the municipality of Gavarnie-Gèdre. Pop. (1999) 455; (2014 est.) 371.