Tourist guide

PAU TODAY

A 400 YEARS OLD ASSASINATION

The 400th anniversary of Henri IV’s assassination has been the theme of a night show held in the castle every Saturday since the beginning of the year. The castle is floodlit for the occasion. From March to June, an exhibition was held in the castle’s national museum while a concert “Ball at the Henri IV court”, was given in July. In August, an equestrian show is organised in the castle’s park.
Henri IV was murdered on May 14, 1610 by fanatic monk Ravaillac, as he was blocked in his carriage in rue de la Ferronnerie in Paris, in the Les Halles quarter. Ravaillac stepped on the footboard and stabbed the King to death. With the death of Henri IV, France lost a monarch who managed to be loved by all in spite of his Huguenot origins. His conversion in 1593 – “Paris is well worth a mass”, he said – and the Edict of Nantes, by which he gave back their rights and possessions to the Protestants, earned him the nickname of “good King Henri”. As for Ravaillac, he was violently and publicly tortured on the Place de Greve in Paris and his remains were dispersed. It was never clear who had ordered the killing.

PAU : THE STORY

UP AND FLYING PAU

Pau is proud of its past as a pioneering town for aviation. It was first a haven for aerostation thanks to the presence in town of James Gordon Bennett or Gaston and Albert Tissandier. In January 1909, Pau welcomed the famous Wright brothers, who inaugurated the first flying school in history. Soon, Louis Bleriot and air companies Voisin, Antoinette, Deperdussin, Morane Saulnier and Nieuport, followed.
In 1912, the French army chose Pau as its base to form its future pilots. Pau’s air base trained more than 6,000 pilots, including celebrities like Guynemer, Roland Garros or Vedrines as well as the American volunteers of the La Fayette squadron. Pau’s aircraft history is now displayed in an exhibition in the Palais Beaumont.
The Adour area remains an important centre for aircraft industry and several world-leading companies are based around Pau: Daher-Socata
for turbine mono-engined aircraft, Dassault-Aviation for business jets, Messier-Dowty for undercarriages, and Turbomeca for helicopter turbines. These companies keep Pau up and flying.

PAU AND CYCLING

BINDA AND FRANCE, A MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Pau welcomed the Tour de France 62 times, which makes it the race’s third favourite halt after Paris and Bordeaux. The winners list in town reads like a cycling Who’s Who. Since Alfredo Binda, who opened the ball in 1930, Robic, Coppi, Bahamontes, Gimondi, Hinault, Kelly, Delgado, Chiappucci or Pereiro raised their arms on the finish line.
Binda’s inaugural victory deserves to be looked into as it was only one of two by the most gifted rider of the time, who won the next day in Luchon. Binda, who had thought about becoming French when he turned professional, took part in this 1930 Tour only, shunning the race for the rest of his career. An extremely powerful athlete, he was the first ever rider to stay on the saddle in the hardest climbs. Rene Vietto used to describe him this way: “You could put a glass of water on his head and he would climb the Tourmalet without losing a drop”. Three times world champion, winner of 41 Giro stages, Binda finally won the Tour four times… as Italy’s team director.
His compatriots have since emulated Binda in Pau to the point that the last three winners here were Italians.
Pau is also the town which saw the first stage victory by a Soviet rider when Dmitry Konyshev won in 1990.
A number of active riders were born in Pau like Stpehane Auge, Mathieu Ladagnous or Herve Duclos-Lassalle.

PAU : TIMELINE

PAU : PLACES TO SEE

HENRI IV CASTLE

THE TOURMALET TODAY

CYCLING IS NOT ALONE

Of course, Tourmalet is one of cycling’s monuments and the sport made it a household name when it was only known by a few mountaineers. But the slopes of the Pyrenean giant are also an ideal playground for other sports which have always been in good terms with cycling. In La Turbie, the resort director has been for years one of the best fullback in French rugby union history, Jean-Michel Aguirre, while French Tennis Federation president Jean Gachassin, himself a former rugby international, was a brilliant skier who left his mark in La Turbie. Skiing, of course, keeps the Tourmalet busy in the winter when the pass is closed. Annie Famose, whom we already met in Avoriaz on this Tour, is the most famous skier from Bareges, where a piste is named after her. Nowadays, downhill specialist Adrien Theaux, who took part in the Vancouver Olympics, keeps the ski flame alive in the Pyrenees even though the Tarbes-born skier now lives Val Thorens. One of the greatest snowboarders of all time, Mathieu Crepel, also learnt his sport on the slopes of the Tourmalet. It is part of the mountain’s magic that some go up it in the summer when others go down it in the winter.

THE TOURMALET : THE STORY

A MARQUISE UP THE TOURMALET

In 1675, Madame de Maintenon, mistress of King Louis XIV, went from Bareges to Bagneres de Bigorre by the Tourmalet in a Sedan chair. It was at the time, in spite of the altitude, the safest way to go since the valley road was often flooded or littered with stones. Francoise d’Aubigne, who was then 40, was looking after the Duke of Maine, the King’s son, who had come to Bareges to cure articular problems preventing him from walking normally. He would be a limp his whole life. Her nurse, who was made a marquise that year, always treated “the little duke” as her own son. The Duke of Maine spent most of the summer in Bareges and made some progress. “The Duke of Maine walks and even though it is not very vigorously there is ground to hope that he will some day walk like us”, Madame de Maintenon wrote in October.
The marquise returned to Bareges twice and always recommended the baths to her friends. She became the King’s mistress that same year and married him secretly nine years later.

THE TOURMALET AND CYCLING

SOMEONE IS MISSING AT THE TOP

The Souvenir Henri Desgrange is awarded every year on the highest summit in the Tour and it will be handed this year at the top of the Tourmalet. Yet someone important was missing when the race went on top of it for the first time in 1910 – Henri Desgrange himself.
The Tour founder had been reluctant to include the Tourmalet on his itinerary and its presence on the course and frightened a number of riders. There were only 110 men at the start of that edition. The Perpignan to Luchon stage, with its first climbs in the Pyrenees, did not boost Desgrange’s morale. Riders had told him bluntly before the start what they thought of his initiative and when the stage reached Luchon, the mood was even worse. Desgrange suddenly fell ill and chose to stay in Luchon for a little bit of hydrotherapy, handing the reins of the race to Victor Breyer, a boxing expert who could use his fists in case of need. Desgrange was probably right to take the derivation. Stage winner Octave Lapize, who was also first at the top of the Tourmalet, used only one word to describe the organisers: “Criminals!” The crime has remained unpunished for a 100 years!

THE TOURMALET : TIMELINE

THE TOURMALET : PLACES TO SEE

PIC DU MIDI