Page 449 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - France

The sun setting over the snowy Pyrénées

THE PYRÉNÉES

Clean water sources and bubbling hot springs
enticed the first settlers to the rugged granite
peaks of the Pyrénées some 10,000 years ago.
A natural border between France and Spain, this
mountain range lacks arable land, and so these
early farmers instead herded sheep and cattle
up and down the mountains. According to legend,
Hannibal, more glamorously, tramped his ele phants
up and down the peaks in 218 BC. In the 1st cen­
tury BC, Basque tribes assimilated with the Romans,
but retained their culture. A confederacy of these
tribes, with Bayonne as their capital, repelled
invaders for a thousand years, but sank into feudal­
ism in the 12th century, as politically canny families
rose to prominence. By the 16th century, feuds
between these families erupted into the bloody
War of the Bands, which only ceased following
royal intervention. In 1660, Louis XIV married Maria
Theresa, the Infanta of Spain, in St­Jean­de­Luz,
forming a tenuous relationship between the rival
countries. The truce had dissolved by 1807, when
the region was embroiled in the Franco­Spanish
Peninsula Wars. Towards the end of the 19th cen­
tury, peace reigned again. Coastal towns such as
Biarritz and St­Jean­de­Luz became fashionable
seaside resorts and, as tourism grew in the 1960s,
Biarritz became a popular surfing spot.
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