The Font-Romeu resort
Font-Romeu is an authentic, sporty and sunny mountain resort, nestled among the forest at an altitude of 1800m, and just 10km from Spain.
The resort thrives all year round thanks to its 2,000 residents, the “Romeufontains”. Many holiday homes complete the landscape.
The municipality of Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via is home to a number of sports facilities that are worthy of the pre-Olympic training site that it hosts. Athletes from all over the world come to train at the National Altitude Training Centre (CNEA). The town also offers a wide range of sports facilities that are accessible to all.
City of Font-Romeu
The Grand Hotel
On August 28, 1910, the first stone was laid.
The Grand Hotel is to be built in the Art Nouveau style, with all the structural work being done in granite.
The palace was made up of 200 rooms featuring a modern comfort for the time. Several halls and lounges as well as a wooded park were created. The hotel was equipped with a phone and a telegraph along with a variety of sports facilities: tennis courts, croquet, ice rink, golf, slopes to go sledging, curling, bobsleighing and skiing. The casino had a Baccara gaming room, roulette, and many games. A library, salons with bars and dancing lounges were also available for the enjoyment of the very well-off clientele. Finally, halls were used as theatre or movie rooms.
During the Belle Epoque, the jet set, the crowned heads of the time and other artists, writers and celebrities from all over the world frequented the establishment.
Odeillo Solar Furnace
Font-Romeu enjoys year-round sunshine and a pure atmosphere. Those two characteristics led to the creation in Odeillo of a solar furnace in 1970. As the first big solar furnace in the country and in the world, the building is listed as a historical monument.
After the 1973 oil crisis, Odeillo-based researchers headed their work towards the conversion of solar energy into electricity. The IMP laboratory (IMP stands for Institut de Science et de Génie des Matériaux et Procédés: Institute of Science and Engineering of Material and Processes) then centered its activity on the study of materials and the industrial methods.
With the return to energy and environmental concerns, the laboratory is once again involved in those areas (solar hydrogen extractions, various reprocessing of waste, including radioactive).
