A little bit of Spain surrounded by France, Llívia is a town that never got handed over in 1659.  The Treaty of the Pyrenees handed over a number of nearby villages to France but for various reasons Llívia wasn’t part of the deal.  Its status has stayed the same to the present day.

Nowadays of course, travel between Spain and, well.. Spain isn’t a problem but even relatively recently (under Franco) it was a different story, with special passes being required to transit France.

The novelty of crossing the border and being in a Spanish town completely surrounded by France is something to experience if you’re interested in such novelties – and the history behind them – but even without all of that, with the great backdrop of the Pyrenees it’s still worth a visit when passing through on the wonderful mountain roads.