Oloron-Sainte-Marie
Oloron-Sainte-Marie is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the region of Béarn in south-western France. The town was founded by the Romans in the 1st century known as Illoronensium. Situated on the Roman way between the important towns of Dax and Saragossa, its position was strategic. Today known as Saint-Great, Gratus of Oloron became in 506 the first known archbishop of the Ancient Diocese of Oloron known as "Iluro"; the history of the town during the Migration Period is little known. In 1080, the viscount Centule V, Viscount of Béarn built the new city of "Oloron" on the opposite side of the river from the diocese center. Centulle V restored the Roman walls and founded the strong city of Oloron, to be used as a base to retake the Aragon held by the Maures; the Oloron Cathedral was built at the beginning of the 12th century. The viscountal town of Oloron and the episcopal town of Sainte-Marie were rivals, but Oloron strove on its textile industry and commerce with neighbouring Spain.
Sainte-Marie became economically dependent upon Oloron. The 18th century was the beginning of revival for Sainte-Marie as the end of French Wars of Religion allowed for restorations and new religious constructions in the town: cathedral, church Saint-Pierre. Moreover, the continued boom of commerce with Spain accelerated the construction of better communication and transportation routes to Oloron and Sainte-Marie. With the French Revolution Oloron lost its diocese to Bayonne but gained administrative importance by becoming one of the sous-préfectures of the new Republic. In the 1858, the regent Impress Eugénie imposed the reunification of the towns of Oloron and Sainte-Marie. Situated at the feet of the Pyrénées, 50 km from the Spanish border and 100 km from the Atlantic ocean, Oloron-Sainte-Marie is at the confluence of two gaves, the Gave d'Aspe and the Gave d'Ossau that merge to form the gave d'Oloron. Capital of the Haut-Béarn, Oloron-Sainte-Marie is at the point of origin of the three Haut-Béarn valleys: the Aspe Valley, the Ossau Valley and the Barétous Valley.
Neighboring communes: Esquiule, Ledeuix, Cardesse, Monein, Goès, Précilhon, Herrère, Ogeu-les-Bains, Arudy, Asasp-Arros, Lurbe-Saint-Christau, Gurmençon, Agnos, Ance and Féas. The town has an oceanic climate, with humid winters and cool or moderately warm summers. Rain is quite abundant and is concentrated during cold season; the Oloron economy is dominated by two well known manufacturing businesses: * Lindt & Sprüngli have a chocolate factory in Oloron. * Messier-Bugatti-Dowty have a plant in the adjacent commune of Bidos which manufactures landing gear for aircraft. Oloron is famous, among hat enthusiasts, as the capital of the basque beret, although the beret business has fallen victim to the widespread collapse of the European textile business as well as changing fashions. Today only one beret business survives in Oloron; this is the Béatex company which employs 80 people. The area benefits from an active agriculture sector, involving animal rearing and general agriculture as well as maize production.
It is part of the AOC defined districts entitled to produce the ewes' cheese, Ossau-Iraty. The railway from Pau to Canfranc passes through Oloron. Oloron railway station is served by TER Aquitaine, who operate eight trains per day to Pau and six to Bedous. Public transport in the town is provided by a company called La Navette, who operate three bus routes. Oloron - Herrère Aérodrome is an aerodrome five kilometers southeast of Oloron, it is predominantly used for light leisure. The local vernacular language is a dialect of Gascon language. One of the eight primary schools of Oloron is a French/Bearnese bilingual school; the demonym corresponding to Oloron-Sainte-Marie is Oloronais. The town received the label French Towns and Lands of Art and History in November 2006. Oloron's architectural and historical landmarks: the 13th century Tour de Grède the former town hall and prison, classified in 1987 among as Monument historique the fortified walls the 16th century Legugnon castle the 17th century building in the rue Pomone, classified in 1943 as Monument historique the Parc Pommé the "Maison du Patrimoine" the Médiathèque public library, awarded the Equerre d'Argent architectural award in 2010.
The Oloron Cathedral the Sainte Marie church Oloron is home to a number of festivals: the jazz festival Des Rives & Notes on the first weekend of July, the "Amateur web film festival", organised every spring season to showcase the best short films published on the internet, the "Book without borders" fair held on the second weekend of June. Oloron-Sainte-Marie has a concert venue; the town is renowned for its hearty vegetables and meat soup, the garbure, for the Ossau-Iraty cheese, for a delicacy invented by a local baker in 1925, the pastry "le Russe". Oloron-Sainte-Marie was the birthplace of: Louis Barthou, politician of the Third Republic Cataline, explorer Camille Lopez, rugby player Oloron Cathedral Gave d'Oloron Gave d'Ossau Gave d'Aspe Ancient Diocese of Oloron Communes of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department INSEE commune file
Bruges-Capbis-Mifaget
Bruges-Capbis-Mifaget is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in southwestern France. People from the commue are called "brugeois"'. Bruges-Capbis-Mifaget is situated on 16.55 square kilometres of rolling hills in the far foothills of the Pyrenees. The commune is located on the east side of 25 kilometres southeast of Pau. Bruges-Capbis-Mifaget is accessible by departmental routes 35, 232, 287, 335. Haut-de-Bosdarros to the north Arros-de-Nay to the northeast Lys to the northwest Asson to the south and east Arthez-d'Asson to the southeast Louvie-Juzon to the southwest Communes of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department SourceINSEENotes
Saint-Pé-de-Bigorre
Saint-Pé-de-Bigorre is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France. Communes of the Hautes-Pyrénées department INSEE
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
Appellation d'origine contrôlée
The appellation d'origine contrôlée is the French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses and other agricultural products, all under the auspices of the government bureau Institut national des appellations d'origine, now called Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité. It is based on the concept of terroir; the origins of AOC date to the year 1411. The first French law on viticultural designations of origin dates to August 1, 1905, whereas the first modern law was set on May 6, 1919, when the Law for the Protection of the Place of Origin was passed, specifying the region and commune in which a given product must be manufactured, has been revised on many occasions since then. On July 30, 1935, the Comité National des appellations d'origine, with representatives of the government and the major winegrowers, was created to manage the administration of the process for wines at the initiative of deputy Joseph Capus. In the Rhône wine region Baron Pierre Le Roy Boiseaumarié, a trained lawyer and winegrower from Châteauneuf-du-Pape obtained legal recognition of the "Côtes du Rhône" appellation of origin in 1936.
After World War II the committee became the public-private Institut National des Appellations d'Origine. The AOC seal was mandated by French laws in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. On July 2, 1990, the scope of work of the INAO was extended beyond wines to cover other agricultural products. AOCs vary in size; some cover vast expanses with a variety of climatic and soil characteristics, while others are small and uniform. For example, the Côtes du Rhône AOC "covers some 400 square kilometres, but within its area lies one of the smallest AOCs, Château-Grillet, which occupies less than 4 hectares of land." The INAO guarantees that all AOC products will hold to a rigorous set of defined standards. The organization stresses that AOC products will be produced in a consistent and traditional manner with ingredients from classified producers in designated geographical areas; the products must further be aged at least in the respective designated area. Under French law, it is illegal to manufacture and sell a product under one of the AOC-controlled geographical indications if it does not comply with the criteria of the AOC.
AOC products can be identified by a seal, printed on the label in wines, with cheeses, on the rind. To prevent any possible misrepresentation, no part of an AOC name may be used on a label of a product not qualifying for that AOC; this strict label policy can lead to confusion in cases where towns share names with appellations. If the town of origin of a product contains a controlled appellation in its name, the producer is enjoined from listing anything more than a cryptic postal code. For example, there are a dozen townships in l'Aude that have Cabardès in their names, several of which are not within the geographical boundaries of the Cabardès AOC. Any vineyard that produces wine in one of those towns must not mention the name of the town of origin on the product labels. There are over 300 French wines entitled to the designation AOC on their label. Legislation concerning the way vineyards are identified makes recognizing the various AOCs challenging for wine drinkers not accustomed to the system.
Distinguishing classifications requires knowledge of esoteric label laws such as "Unless the wine is from a Premier Cru vineyard, the vineyard name must be printed in characters no more than half the height of the ones used for the village name"On the other hand, while the process of label approval is enforced to the millimetre, the quality control for the wine in the bottle is much less strict. While a blind taster must approve the wine for it to receive AOC classification, this tasting occurs before the product is bottled, by a local expert who may well have ties to the local vintners. If the taster is objective, the wine sample may not be representative of the actual product, there is no way to verify that the finished bottled product is the same as the original AOC sample. In 1925, Roquefort became the first cheese to be awarded an AOC label, since over 40 cheeses have been assigned AOC status. On August 15, 1957, the National Assembly gave AOC status to the poultry of Bresse. In 2006, it awarded AOC status to salt marsh lamb raised in the Bay of the Somme.
In 1981, the AOC label was given to Haute-Provence Lavender Essential Oil. It refers to a high-quality production and concerns only the essential oil of fine lavender - Lavandula angustifolia; the fields must be located within a specific territory at a minimum altitude of 800 meters. This geographic area covers 284 communities in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Hautes-Alpes, Drôme and Vaucluse regions. Lentils from Le Puy-en-Velay have AOC status. Honey from the island of Corsica has been given AOC status. There are six certified varietals of Corsican honey: Printemps, Maquis de printemps, Miellats du maquis, Châtaigneraie, Maquis d'été, Maquis d'automne. France recognizes the Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vendée AOC regions for butter; the Beurre Charentes-Poitou has been assigned AOC status in 1979. Armagnac, Calvados and Martinique Rhum Agricole all have AOC status. Many other countries have based their controlled place name systems on th
Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques
Pau is a commune on the northern edge of the Pyrenees, capital of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques Département in the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. The city is located in the heart of the former sovereign Principality of Béarn, of which it was the capital from 1464. Bordered by the Gave de Pau, the city is located 100 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean and 50 kilometres from Spain; this position gives it an exceptional panorama across the mountain range of the Pyrenees as well as on the hillsides of Jurançon. The name of Horizons Palois aims to protect this vision, in particular with the famous Boulevard des Pyrénées which extends for 1.8 kilometres from the Château de Pau to the Parc Beaumont. Alphonse de Lamartine said: "Pau has the world's most beautiful view of the earth just as Naples has the most beautiful view of the sea." Archaeology has asserted. It wasn't until the first half of the 12th century that the first mentions of Pau as a settlement are found; the town originated from the construction of its castle from the 11th century by the Viscounts of Béarn, to protect the ford, a strategic point for access to the Bearn valleys and to Spain.
The city thus took its name from the stockade. The village, built around the castle took advantage of its strategic position as well as the protection of the Viscounts of Béarn to develop over the following centuries. Pau became the capital of Béarn in 1464, thus becoming the political and economic centre of this small State which continued to defend its independence from the neighbouring French and Spanish territories; the town and its castle took on a new dimension by becoming the seat of the Kings of Navarre, at the capture of Pamplona, by the Kingdom of Castile in 1512. Pau became a leading political and intellectual centre under the reign of Henry d'Albret and his wife Marguerite; the history of Pau is marked by the birth of Henry of Bourbon 13 December 1553 in the castle of his grandparents. He gained access to the throne of France in 1589 under the title of Henry IV; the image of the city is since associated with that of this monarch made famous for his willingness to put an end to the endless Wars of Religion.
With the end of Béarnaise independence in 1620, Pau lost its influence but remained the same at the head of a autonomous province. It was home to the Parliament of Navarre and Béarn which wrote its texts in Occitan until the Revolution and its dismantling to create the Department of Basses-Pyrénées, it was during the 18th century when another famous person was born in Pau, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte who became Marshal of the Empire and King of Sweden, today still the ruling dynasty of Sweden and of Norway when that country was under the Swedish monarchy. The Belle Époque marked a resurgence for the Béarnaise capital with a massive influx of wealthy foreign tourists, they came to spend the winter to take advantage of the benefits of Pau's climate described by the Scottish physician Alexander Taylor. Pau turned with the construction of many villas and mansions to accommodate these wintering rich people, the city developed all elements of modernity for their comfort: baths and railway station, it was at this time that Pau became one of the world capitals of the nascent aerospace industry under the influence of the Wright brothers, crowned heads pressed there to observe the flight of the first flying school in the world.
With the decline of tourism during the 20th century, the Pau economy shifted towards the aviation industry and to that of petrochemicals with the major discovery of the Lacq gas field in 1951. Pau today is a city of about 80,000 inhabitants, the main urban area of Pau and of the Communauté d'agglomération Pau Béarn Pyrénées with 30 neighbouring communes which carry out local tasks together; the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, founded in 1972, accounts for a large student population. The city plays a leading role for Béarn but for a wide segment of the Adour area. An administrative capital, it boasts a dense economic fabric including service activities. Pau plays the role of cultural capital with many events, including sports. Pau's heritage extends over several centuries, its diversity and its quality allowed it to obtain the label of City of Art and History in 2011; the name of its people is Palois and the motto of Pau is in Latin: Urbis palladium et gentis. Pau is 50 km from the Pyrenees.
Spain is 50 km away. The frontier is crossed by the col du Pourtalet. Access to the crossings accounts for Pau's strategic importance. Pau is located 30 km from Tarbes and Lourdes, 25 km from Oloron; the conglomeration of Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz is at Bordeaux 190 km. To the north: Buros and Morlaàs To the east: Bizanos and Idron To the south: Gelos and Jurançon To the west: Lons and Billère Pau is served by the Pau Pyrénées Airport 10 km away. Limited scheduled flights serve Amsterdam, Southampton, Dublin and Paris. A TGV rail line runs from Bayonne to Toulouse; the A64 autoroute goes to the east. The A65 autoroute was opened in December 2010, linking Pau with the Dordogne. The
Michel Grosclaude
Michel Grosclaude was a philosopher and French linguist, the author of works on grammar and Occitan onomastics. Born on 8 July 1926 in Nancy at, he was the son of a writer. He studied in Lyon and in Marseille and spent time in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon during the war, which had some significance for his humanistic ideas, he finished his training in Latin and philosophy at the Sorbonne. He was appointed as a professor at Chinon where he married a teacher, they sought the possibility of compatible posts and came across them in Béarn: she at Sauvelade, he in the Orthez high school where he arrived in 1958. Volunteering to take the post of secretary of the town council in Sauvelade, he was confronted for the first time with the Occitan language in its béarnaise and Gascon variants, he understood the importance of this language that he had seen at the Mistral de Marseille high school. He decided to train with the help of Roger Lapassade, a high school colleague, who in 1960 founded the association Per Noste in Orthez as a Gascon section of the Occitan Studies Institute.
Noted for his knowledge of Latin and Greek, he integrated with the association in 1965 and became a specialist and historian of the language. He would be one of the leaders of the defence of Occitan culture until his death, he became professor of Occitan and worked on the publishing of first level textbooks with Robert Darrigrand. At the same time he contributed to the magazine Per Noste País Gascons and a History of Béarn designed for teachers and students, he directed his first elementary French-Occitan dictionary for the La Civada association in Pau. He tackled writing a more complete version of this dictionary, with Gilbert Narioo, it was completed by Patric Guilhemjoan after his death in 2002. Meanwhile, he taught himself the onomastics of Occitan and made some interesting studies of Gascon toponymy and patronymy. For twelve years he hosted his 15-minute daily show, lo Cercanoms, on Ràdio País with Crestian Lamaison, one of his students, his show was open to all topics pertaining to the heritage of proper names.
Along with his job as a professor of philosophy it was little known that he was interested in many subjects, some of which he was passionate about, such as geology and book binding. He wrote, he worked with the Centre for the Study of Béarnais Protestantism and published several papers in their journal. He died on 21 May 2002, was buried at Sauvelade. La Republica Peiralada. Lo procès de l'aulhèr. La termièra sauvatja. Lo Gascon lèu e plan Le Bearn, testimonials on 1000 years of history La Gascogne, testimonials on 2000 years of history Toponymical Dictionary of the Communes of Béarn. L'Evangèli segon sant Matèu. Etymological dictionary of Gascon family names. Directory of Occitan conjugations of Gascony. Toponymical Dictionary of the Communes of Hautes-Pyrenees. Small French-Occitan dictionary, lo Civadet. 70 keys to the learning of Occitan in Gascony. JH Fondeville, The pastorala deu paisan with Gilbert Narioo. Navera pastorala bearnesa with Gilbert Narioo; the sermon of the priest of Bideren. Father Girardeau, Las macarienas.
Maria Blanga, era darrèra deras aurostèras dera vath Aspa History of Béarn with Dominique Bidot-Germa and Jean-Paul Duchon. French-Occitan Dictionary, 45,000 entries, with Gilbert Narioo and Patric Guilhemjoan
Arthez-d'Asson
is registered as a historical monument.[13]
