Here we enter a protected world with spectacular landscapes, a kingdom of untamed nature and a place where you can find all the plant life of the Pyrenees as well as more than 70 species of animals.

Woodchucks thrive in the Pyrenees. Izards were threatened with extinction in the 1950s; there are now more than 5,000 of them. The last French bears have found their ultimate refuge.

Along with northern Spain, the Pyrenees are the sole place where an unusual animal lives: the desman. With the body of a mole and a long, trunk-like nose and webbed feet, it lives on the banks of mountain streams at an altitude of up to 2200 metres, and feeds on insect larvae and small shellfish.

In the Pyrenees National Park, there is the same concern for the protection of plant-life.



The broad-leafed cardamine flourishes in the yew and fir forests between 900 and 1800 metres; a little higher up (1800 to 2400 metres) you will find mugho pine scattered with deep purple Pyrenean irises and rhododendrons. On the higher snow-capped peaks plant life is scarcer, with only a few small willows, lichens and algae.