Into Thin Air

EVEN in summer the road from Perpignan and the Med to the snowless, out of season ski resort of Font Romeu ranks as a long, hard slog.

The vineyards and peach orchards that blanket the coastal plain of Langeudoc-Roussillon gradually give way to forestry, the slopes become steeper and the bends sharper as the road twists and turns up the 90 kilometres and into the eastern French Pyrenees.

As the air gets thinner, so do the numbers of tourists. So by the time you reach 1,600 metres or so above sea level the road becomes less of a tourist trail - in July at least - and more the type of route you would expect only the most dedicated of pilgrim to travel; still climbing, still searching for spiritual rejuvenation by getting that one step closer to God.