The only road approach to Gavarnie and Troumouse, best known of the Pyrenean cirques, is through LUZ-ST-SAUVEUR, on the GR10 and a daily SNCF bus route from Lourdes. Like Cauterets, it was a nineteenth-century spa, patronized by Napoléon III and Eugénie, and the left-bank St-Saveur quarter owes its elegant Neoclassical facades to this period.The principal sight, at the top of Luz's medieval, right-bank quarter, is the church of St-André. Built in the late twelfth century and fortified in the fourteenth by the Knights of St John, it's a classic of its kind, with a crenellated outer wall and two stout towers. The north entrance, beneath one of the towers, sports a handsome portal surmounted by a Christ in Majesty carved in fine-grained local stone. The lanes radiating down from the church are crammed with market stalls every Monday. The tourist office (July & Aug Mon–Sat 9am–7.30pm, Sun 9am–12.30 & 4.30–7.30pm; Sept–June daily 8.30/9am–noon & 2.30–6/7pm; tel 05.62.92.30.30, www.luz.org), edges the central place du Huit-Mai, by the crossroads for Gavarnie or Barèges. Two central hotels to try are the quiet and atmospheric Les Templiers (tel 05.62.92.81.52; €30–40; closed May & Oct), opposite the church, and Les Cimes (tel 05.62.92.83.03; under €30), 70m downhill on the same lane. There's also a campsite and gîte d'étape, Les Cascades (tel 05.62.92.94.14), uphill from the church, and Camping Le Toy, near the tourist office (tel 05.62.92.86.85; closed May & Oct–Dec). Restaurants are generally indifferent, catering to French day-trippers, though Chez Christine (closed May, Oct & Nov), near the post office, serves decent pizzas and salads. Twelve kilometres south in tiny GÈDRE, where another side road veers off for the Cirque de Troumouse, there are two comfortable hotels – Les Pyrénées (tel 05.62.92.48.51; €40–55; open all year) and La Brèche de Roland (tel 05.62.92.48.54, www.gavarnie.com/hotel-la-breche; €40–55; closed late April & Oct–Dec), with a reasonable restaurant – plus a pair of highly rated gîtes d'étape nearby: Le Saugué (tel 05.62.92.48.73; closed Nov–April), with camping space, and L'Escapade (tel 05.69.92.49.37; closed April, May, Oct & Nov).
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