Gorges de Galamus

North of Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet, the Agly cuts through the mountain by a narrow defile some five kilometres long, on the border between the Pyrénées-Orientales and the Aude. The gorges are carved into limestone and dolomite folded during the formation of the Pyrenees, along the great fault that separates the range from its foothills.

Long impassable, they were opened to traffic only in the late 19th century: workmen suspended from ropes cut the road into the cliff and pierced its tunnel in 1892. Narrow, with a height restriction and nowhere to turn back, it remains one of the most impressive roads in the region, above the pools and potholes hollowed out by the river.

Halfway along, the Saint-Antoine de Galamus hermitage clings to the rock face, about a hundred metres above the Agly. According to tradition, hermits lived here as early as the early Middle Ages; the sanctuary is mentioned in 1474, and the chapel was built into a large natural cave in the late 18th century. Sold as national property during the Revolution, it has remained a place of pilgrimage, and the bell is still rung there.

The site, protected since 1927 around the hermitage, also forms part of a natural zone of ecological interest covering more than 1,000 hectares. The cliffs shelter the peregrine falcon and the crag martin; very old Phoenicean junipers cling to the rocks; and, since the late 18th century, botanists have come here to study a rare flora.