After a long wait, this ‘show-stopping’ 104-room hotel has finally opened its doors
Canfranc International railway station in the Spanish Pyrenees inspires “almost instant comparisons” with the fictional Grand Budapest Hotel in Wes Anderson’s film of that name, said Victoria Brzezinski in The Times. “Ten times bigger than London’s St Pancras”, this “splendid beaux-arts construction surrounded by snow-capped peaks”, was the second-largest railway station in Europe when it opened in 1928. But technical issues, diplomatic difficulties, a fire and the Spanish Civil War bedevilled its early life; and after a derailment destroyed a bridge in 1970, the railway line closed and its most famous stop – now nicknamed the “Titanic of the Mountains” – shut for good.
