[5] Twice a year, in early February and at the end of October, with good weather, the Canigó can be seen at sunset from as far as Marseille, 250 km (160 mi) away, by refraction of light.
[8] Every year on 23 June, the night before St. John's day (nit de Sant Joan), there is a ceremony called Flama del Canigó.
French Catalans carry a flaming torch from Perpignan to the cross and the Catalonian flag on top of the mountain, and people light bonfires throughout the area.
In these verses Verdaguer compares the snowy mountain to a Magnolia flower (pages 27–28): Lo Canigó és una magnòlia immensa que en un rebrot del Pirineu se bada; per abelles té fades que la volten, per papallons los cisnes i les àligues.
The pine forests are its hedges and the ponds its dew drops, and its pistil is that golden palace, seen by the nymph in her dreams descending from heaven.