Journey through history: Train station where Jews escaped Germany and Nazis smuggled gold to reopen

The station has been closed since 1970 and behind the ornate facades, Canfranc has a sometimes troubling past, reports Graham Keeley in Spain

(Getty)

A grandiose railway station that was both an escape route for thousands of wartime Jews and a key junction for an illicit trade in Nazi gold is to reopen half a century after its closure.

The international terminal in Canfranc in the Pyrenees on the border between Spain and France was built in the style of a French chateau and was once dubbed the “Titanic of the Mountains” because of its size.  

Fifty years after the station closed and fell into disrepair, it will reopen again next month after an ambitious restoration programme that symbolises the original spirit that led to its creation: unity between Spain and France.