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There are many myths and legends surrounding the station, such as that it changed the course of the second world war. It didn’t, but it certainly played a role. After the Nazis occupied France, Spain’s Franco regime used Canfranc to exchange tungsten, vital in tank production, for Nazi gold, including one single shipment of 86 tons. Franco wanted to maintain good relations with Britain and the US but wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity of lucrative trade with Nazi Germany. “As an international crossing point, Canfranc was more discreet and far less visible than other...

Europe’s unluckiest train station gets new lease of life as hotel Stephen Burgen in Barcelona © Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Bildarchiv Monheim GmbH/Alamy It earned the nickname “Titanic of the mountains”, but now the monumental and ill-fated train station at Canfranc is to get a new life as a five-star hotel, 51 years after the international rail link across the Pyrenees closed. The story of Canfranc, a village more than 1,000 metres (3,280ft) above sea level on the Franco-Spanish frontier, is one of vainglorious ambition and abject failure, of incompetence a...