Pau is a town and commune of southwestern France,
préfecture (capital) of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département.
It is famous for the Boulevard des Pyrénées, a walk of three-quarters of a
kilometre from the Château de Pau to the Parc du Beaumont with
magnificent views of the mountains in the Pyrenees mountain range.
The Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (founded in 1972) is situated
in the town and accounts for Pau's high student population.
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Pau
From humble beginnings
as a crossing on the Gave de Pau for flocks en route to and from
the mountains, PAU became the capital of the ancient viscountcy
of Béarn in 1464, and of the French part of the kingdom
of Navarre in 1512. In 1567 its sovereign, Henri d'Albret, married
the sister of the king of France, Marguerite d'Angoulême,
friend and protector of artists and intellectuals and herself
the author of a celebrated Boccaccio-like tale (the Heptameron
), who transformed the town into a centre of the arts and nonconformist
thinking.
Their daughter was Jeanne
d'Albret, an ardent Protestant, whose zeal offended her own subjects
as well as attracting the wrath of the Catholic king of France,
Charles X, thus embroiling Béarn in the Wars of Religion
- whose resolution, albeit only temporary, had to await the accession
to the French throne of her own son, Henri IV, in 1589. An adroit
politician, he renounced his faith to facilitate this transition,
quipping that "Paris is worth a Mass" and then appeasing
the regional sensibilities of his Béarnais subjects by
announcing that he was giving France to Béarn rather than Béarn
to France. He did not incorporate Béarn into the French
state; that was left to his son and successor, Louis XIII, in
1620. As Pau's most famous son, Henri acquired a suitably colourful
reputation. He was baptized in traditional Béarnais style
with the local Juraçon wine, and his infant lips were
rubbed with garlic. In his adult life he was known as the vert-galant
for his prowess as a lover. He also gave France one of its more
famous recipes, poule au pot - chicken stuffed and boiled with
vegetables: he is reputed to have said that he did not want anyone
in his realm to be so poor as not to be able to afford a poule
in the pot once a week.
The least-expected thing
about Pau is its English connection, which dates from the arrival
of Wellington and his troops after the defeat of Marshal Soult
at Orthez in 1814. Seduced by its climate and persuaded of its
curative powers by the Scottish doctor Alexander Taylor, the
English flocked to Pau throughout the nineteenth century, bringing
along their peculiar cultural obsessions - fox-hunting, horse-racing,
polo, croquet, cricket, golf (the first eighteen-hole course
in continental Europe in 1860 and the first in the world to admit
women), tearooms and parks. When the rail line arrived here in
1866, the French came, too: writers and artists like Victor Hugo,
Stendhal and Lamartine, as well as the socialites. The first
French rugby club opened here in 1902, after which the sport
spread throughout the southwest. During the 1950s, natural gas
was discovered at nearby Lacq, bringing new jobs and subsidiary
industries, as well as massive production of sulphur-dioxide-based
pollution, now reduced by filtration but still substantial. In
addition, there is a well-respected university, founded in 1972,
whose eight thousand or so students give the town a youthful
buzz.
Pau lies within easy reach
of numerous small, picturesque villages in northwest Béarn
, as well as the GR65 footpath that runs some 60km down to the
Spanish border.
Pau 's laid back environment
allows you to enjoy its relaxed and friendly elegance without
any sense of guilt. The parts to wander are the streets behind
the boulevard des Pyrénées , especially the western
end, which stretches along the rim of the scarp above the Gave
de Pau, from the castle to the Palais de Beaumont, now a convention centre, in the
English-style Parc Beaumont . On a clear day, the view from the
boulevard is out of this world, encompassing a hundred-kilometre
sweep of the highest Pyrenean peaks, with the distinctive Pic
du Midi d'Ossau slap in front of you.
In the narrow streets around
the castle and down in the gully of the chemin du Hédas
are numerous cafés, restaurants, bars and boutiques, with
the main market in the halles just northeast on place de la République
each Saturday morning. The Château itself (one-hour guided
tours daily 9.30am-12.15pm & 1.30-5.30pm; 25F/?3.80) is very
much a landmark building. Not much remains of its original appearance
beyond the brick keep built by Gaston Fébus in 1370. The
handsome Renaissance windows and other details on the inner courtyard
were added by Henri d'Albret. Louis-Philippe renovated it in
the nineteenth century after it had stood empty for two hundred
years, and Napoléon III and Eugénie titivated it
further to make it suitable for weekend house parties. The visitable
apartments are essentially theirs, with some fine tapestries
and bits of Henri-IV memorabilia, like the turtle shell that
allegedly served him for a cradle.
A short distance northeast
of the château, the mildly interesting Musée Bernadotte
, 6 rue Tran (Tues-Sun 10am-noon & 2-6pm), is the birthplace
of the man who, having served as one of Napoléon's commanders,
went on to become Charles XIV of Sweden. As well as fine pieces of traditional
Béarnais furniture, the house contains some valuable works
of art collected over his lifetime. Pau's other museum, the Musée
des Beaux-Arts
in rue Mathieu-Lalanne (daily except Tues 10am-noon & 2-6pm),
has an eclectic collection of little-known works from various
European schools spanning the fourteenth to twentieth centuries;
the only really world-class items are Rubens' The Last Judgement
and Degas' The Cotton Exchange , a slice of finely observed Belle
Époque New Orleans life.
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