France scenic viewpoint
Belvédère du Trou de Fer
You can see 143 km from here, looking north.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 143 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 143 kmFarthest ridgelooking north
- 82%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 8%Seaof the circle where the horizon is the sea
- 3Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 1,376 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 3 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are from August to November.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Janwest72 min before the sea-level sunset40%
- Febwest54 min before the sea-level sunset43%
- Marwest38 min before the sea-level sunset44%
- Aprwest30 min before the sea-level sunset51%
- Maywest22 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Junnorth-west20 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Julnorth-west20 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Augwest28 min before the sea-level sunset53%
- Sepwest36 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Octwest46 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Novwest66 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Decwest78 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Belvédère du Trou de Fer.
Belvédère du Trou de Fer is a scenic viewpoint in France, 1,376 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 143 km away, looking north.
The sea fills 8% of the horizon.
3 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Piton Bé Massoune (1,614 m), 6 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 82% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from August to November.

Get there and stay
- Bivouaccampsite · 1.4 km · 16 within 10 km
- Gîte de Bélouveplace to stay · 3.0 km · 76 within 10 km
- Salazienearest town · 2.7 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in SalazieBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Roland Garros Airport (RUN)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 18 km in a straight lineCar hire at RUN airport (Sainte-Marie)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 20other viewpoints within 5 kmBelvédère, Voile de la Mariée, Trou de Fer and 17 more
- 8named peaks within 5 kmMorne du Bras des Lianes, Piton Bémassoune, Piton Bonnet de Prêtre and 5 more
- 1cable car and funicular stations within 5 kmAncien téléphérique forestier
- 3marked trails within 3 kmSentier du Trou de Fer, Sentier de l'École normale, GR R1
- 6shelters and huts within 5 km
- 24car parks within 3 km
- 1visitor centres within 5 kmOffice de Tourisme Intercommunal de l'Est
- 2restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- 16campsites within 10 kmBivouac, Site de Bivouac, Le Bon Campement and 13 more
- 76places to stay within 10 kmGîte de Bélouve, Gîte Parisot, La Mandoze and 73 more
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Belvédère du Trou de Fer, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q108069883) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Islandyas, Forestyas, Canyonyas, Cavernyas, Cascadyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.



