CANFRANC INTERNATIONAL STATION

The station of Canfranc is in the Municipality of the same name, in the Province of Huesca
A few kilometers from France and the National Park of the Pyrenees.
Canfranc offers tourism that visits it the possibility of enjoying unforgettable days thanks to the cultural heritage, gastronomy and the different sports activities that we can find in its environment.

The station of Canfranc with different architectural influences begins to be forged in 1853 in the "Aragonese Manifesto to the Spanish Nation" where popular characters at that time claimed a railway exit to France from Aragon.
A building with a length of 241 meters was built, with a stately design that offers 75 direct doors to the respective platforms, 75 to the Spanish side and 75 to the French side, and an underground passage so that passengers can change trains.
It has three floors of height with more than 360 windows, say exactly 365 for each day of the year and more than 150 double doors.

At the extremes, the police station, customs, post offices, telegraphs and the great International Hotel were installed.
In the central part a great black slate dome.
It was inaugurated on July 18, 1928 by King Alfonso XIII.

In March of 2002, it is cataloged as a monument and it is declared of Cultural Interest.
Its connections with France were suspended in 1970 when a freight train derailed on the French side and collapsed the L 'Estanguet bridge.
The French train company decides not to repair it and the decline begins, no French train stops at Canfranc and the station closes. Subsequently and due to the lack of clients, the Hotel also closes.

Its strategic position and proximity to the border makes it an important place in history.
During the Second World War, the SS and the Gestapo were installed at the station, raising the Nazi flag and starting what has been called the "Nazi gold route", becoming also the escape route for many Jews.
Germany controlled Canfranc's international customs during the Second World War (1939-45) and 1,200 tons of goods were passed monthly on the Germany-Switzerland-Spain-Portugal route, including Nazi gold stolen from the Jews.

"The Germans lived in the station and they even celebrated piano concerts in the dining room. They were very polite. They waltzed with the Canfranc girls and gave them chocolate. They were engineers or chemists and we were ignorant people who were very hungry after the war, "said a neighbor of Canfranc who was then 14 years old.
For its beauty and its history Canfranc Station becomes an emblematic place,
full of mystery legends.

One of them tells us that centuries ago a Jewish pilgrim who followed the Way of Saint James came to the village in a harsh and snowy winter, asked the people of the town for food and lodging but they denied it and expelled her from the village.
Before leaving, she cursed: "Your village will burn twice
and in the end a flood will make it disappear forever. "
In 1617 Canfranc suffered its first fire, leaving only the Church of the Holy Trinity, the Royal Castle, the flour mill and two houses.
In June of 1944 the second fire suffers, burning 117 houses of the 132 that there was. For the reconstruction, a subscription was made at the national level consisting in retaining the salary of all Spanish officials for one day.
That money never reached Canfranc and most of the population took refuge in the garrets of the new town of Canfranc Estación, where neighborhoods and new houses were built and the whole town moved.
Waiting for the curse to continue to be fulfilled, the oldest of the place fears that the river will grow so much that it will overflow.

Information collected from my Blog Routes and Trips