See Inside Enormous Former Railway Station That's Now a Luxury Hotel

May 2024 · 1 minute read

Canfranc Estación, the Royal Hideaway Hotel, reopened its doors after 50 years of decay.

Manolo Yllera

Canfranc Estación, located in the Pyrenees mountains in Aragon, Spain, was inaugurated by King Alfonso XIII in 1928 with French President Gaston Doumergue in attendance.

Passengers could travel via Zaragoza and Madrid in Spain to Lisbon, Portugal as well as France. 

However, the travel options were not available for long as Franco closed the border in 1936 and ordered the rail tunnel to be shuttered, per the Financial Times

It reopened five years later but the line was not well used and a derailment on the French side closed it permanently.

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