Villefranche, the Yellow Train & Font Romeu
The mediaeval walled city of Villefranche de Conflent is well worth a visit. It is popular with tourists and has many restaurants and shops. The walls and ramparts are visible and there is a Roman bridge across the river Tet and Fort Liberia towers over the town. It has recently been granted UNESCO world heritage site status. This is also the starting point for the famous Little Yellow Train, a narrow gauge, mostly single track, scenic railway which goes up into the mountains. At Mont-Louis guided tours are available of the 1st solar furnace in the world. At Odeilla the mirrors of the largest solar furnace in the world, which also has guided tours, can be seen from the shuttle bus to the ski resort of Font Romeu, and only a few kilometers away from this is the Themis solar power tower. These sites in the Pyrenees were chosen for this pioneering research into solar energy because of the region's record of an average 300 days of sunshine a year.
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