Roland's Breach

Roland's Breach is the name of a natural gap, 40 m across and 100 m high, at an elevation of 2804 m in the Pyrenees on the border of Aragón, northern Spain, and Hautes-Pyrénées, France.

The gap is situated in the Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park on the Franco-Spanish border, close to the steep cliffs of the Cirque de Gavarnie.

According to one legend Roland's Breach was cut by Count Roland with his sword Durendal in an attempt to destroy the sword, after being defeated during the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778. In a variant of one of the legends associated with Salto de Roldán, a rock formation about 25 km north of Huesca, Roland, the foremost of Charlemagne's paladins, was being hotly pursued by Saracens, the Muslim Arab occupiers of Spain.