Pic du Midi de Bigorre, a 2,877m peak in the French Pyrenees, hosts a historic observatory and sits at the heart of the largest International Dark Sky Reserve in Europe. The high-altitude site delivers Bortle 1–2 skies with exceptional transparency and steady seeing — conditions that have made it a professional astronomy site for over a century. Visitors can stay overnight at the summit, reached by cable car, for unobstructed dark-sky views above much of the atmosphere's haze and water vapour. At 42.9°N, the southern sky and summer Milky Way are beautifully presented.