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Belitres Tunnel

Portbou, Alt Empordà, Girona

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 2 Nature · 1 Activities · 2 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

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Belitres Tunnel

Curiosity · Portbou, Alt Empordà, Girona

The túnel dels Belitres is a 1,064-metre railway tunnel that crosses the Pyrenees between Portbou and the French municipality of Cervera de la Marenda, beneath the pass of the same name. It was built in 1876, on the line from Narbonne to Portbou, as a result of the 1864 agreement between France and Spain. Between 28 January and 9 February 1939, during the Retirada, some 35,000 Spanish republican refugees crossed it on foot fleeing Franco's troops; on 1 February, a refugee gave birth to a girl inside the tunnel while waiting to cross into France, and died shortly after the birth. Two tracks of different gauge run through the tunnel, standard gauge for French trains and Iberian gauge for Spanish ones, with six mining furnaces dug along its route.

Photo: Leire (Tagzania user ID: 270) (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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