Page 191 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Europe

FR ANCE  189

A picturesque village set among the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains
bell tower (1294) is much remote terrain and tenacious times. Biarritz, west of Bayonne,
imitated in southwest France. people have given heretics a has two casinos and three good
Toulouse became a center of hiding place and refugees an beaches, with the best surfing
Romanesque art in Europe due escape route. in Europe. A short distance south,
to its position on the route to The Parc National des St-Jean-de-Luz is a sleepy fish-
Santiago de Compostela (see Pyrénées extends 100 km ing village that explodes into life
p292). The largest Romanesque (62 miles) along the French– in summer. A main attraction is
basilica in Europe, the Basilique Spanish frontier. It boasts some the Eglise St-Jean Baptiste, where
de St-Sernin, was built in the of the most splendid alpine Louis XIV married the Infanta
11th–12th centuries to scenery in Europe, and is rich Maria Teresa of Spain in 1660.
accommo date pilgrims. The in flora and fauna. Within the A lively university town with
Musée des Augustins has park are 350 km (217 miles) elegant architecture, Pau is the
sculptures from the period, of footpaths. most interesting large town in
and incor porates cloisters from The region’s oldest the central Pyrenees. It has
a 14th-century Augustinian inhabitants, the Basque people, long been a favorite resort of
priory. Also featured are French, have maintained their own affluent foreigners.
Italian, and Flemish paintings. language and culture. Bayonne, Other places of interest
The 16th-century palace on the Atlantic coast, is the include the many mountain ski
known as the Hôtel d’Assézat capital of French Basque resorts, the shrine at Lourdes,
now houses the Fondation country, and has been an and the pretty hilltop town of
Bemberg, named after local art- important town since Roman St-Bertrand-de-Comminges.
lover Georges Bemberg, with
Renaissance art and 19th- and The Miracle of Lourdes
20th-century French work.
In 1858, a 14-year-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous experienced
E Musée des Augustins 18 visions of the Virgin at the Grotte Massabielle near the town of
21 Rue de Metz. Tel 05-61 22 21 82. Lourdes. Despite being told to keep away from the cave by her
Open daily. Closed Jan 1, May 1, mother – and the local magistrate – she was guided to a spring with
Dec 25. & 8 7 ∑ augustins.org miraculous healing
powers. The church
endorsed the miracles
j Pyrenees in the 1860s, and since
then many people claim
~ Pau. £ @ Bayonne & Pau. to have been cured
n Place des Basques, Bayonne by the holy water. A
(08-20 42 64 64); Place Royale, huge city of shrines,
Pau (05-59 27 27 08). churches, and hospices
has since grown up
The mountains dominate life in around the spring, with
the French Pyrenees. A region in a dynamic tourist
many ways closer to Spain than Pilgrims at an open-air mass in Lourdes industry to match.
France, over the centuries its

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