Standing at the meeting-point of the Aspe and Ossau rivers, Oloron-Sainte-Marie is a small but lively town. At Oloron, berets are made in the traditional way: a single thread 500 metres long woven into a woollen round. Berets are currently very fashionable: the Béatex plant exports half its production! Alongside traditions, there are new and promising industries to keep this busy town occupied: aeronautics, high-tech metallurgy and the production of chocolate.

Here, past and present coexist in peace: the doorway of Sainte-Marie cathedral is one of the chefs-d'œuvre of Romanesque art, whereas a Sculpure Symposium has led to an astonishing collection of modern art in public parks and at road junctions. Oloron-Sainte-Marie stands at the threshold of the Bearn mountains. It remains a meeting and provision-making place with one step in the foothills and the other in the mountains. It also maintains close links with the valleys of Barétous, Aspe and Ossau.

Social outcasts ("cagots") In the Middle Ages, certain people in the Béarn and Bigorre areas were labelled "cagots" and treated as lepers or fools. These social outcasts were rejected and humiliated. Most professions were forbidden to them. This segregation was abolished during the reign of Louis XIV. We still do not know much about who these outcasts really were and why. Their social standing was so low that they had their own holy water basin in churches so as not to mix with other members of the congregation.

Barétous valley

	Barétous is a Bearn valley full of character: steep gorges, green hills, deep forests and, in contrast, a huge area of cracked limestone with all kinds of strangely shaped rocks. This valley has maintained its close ancestral links with the Roncal valley, its neighbour in the Navarre. Previously, there were many conflicts between shepherds from the French and Spanish sides about grazing and watering holes.

			The border stone at Pierre-Saint-Martin
		Every year since the XIIth century, breeders on either side of the border renew their peace agreements, known as "lies et passeries" (links and peace) treaties. People from the Barétous valley offer their neighbours in the Roncal valley three heifers in exchange for the right to graze on the Navarre pasture lands. These pastoral rites take place at the Pierre-Saint-Martin pass.

Aspe valley

		This sheltered pastoral valley is known as "bear valley", for it is here -between Aspe and Ossau- that the last bears in the Pyrenees are now living. The history of the valley has recently been marked by conflict: the construction of the Somport tunnel between France and Spain created a lively polemic, those for the tunnel coming up across those wishing to protect the environment…

This superb, well-preserved landscape is home to the last bears		In the 1920s, a railway already linked Aspe and Aragon: it ran through a railway tunnel at Somport and stopped at Canfranc station. It was not commercially viable and in 1970, following an accident, the line was cut on the French side. There remains in the Aragon village on the other side of the Somport pass a remarkable building: Canfranc railway station. This international station is an architectural wonder. It had a magnificent hall and a luxury hotel. When the line was closed, the station was left to fall into rack and ruin, with just a few trains running between Canfranc and Saragosse.

Ossau valley

	Ossau is a deep, wide valley which reaches through to the Pourtalet pass. Fiercely independent up to the time of the French Revolution, the valley still has its own personality. Its inhabitants lived for a long time from the exploitation of marble. Nowadays, they mostly live off sheep and cattle rearing, keeping their traditions without slipping into folklore.

			High-altitude summer pastures
		Along the Ossau river lies a string of villages with interesting features: Arudy offers an archaeology museum and marble quarries; Laruns has a cheese festival; Eaux-Chaudes and Eaux-Bonnes are spa towns renowned since Henri IV, and Gabas is right near the beautiful lake of Bious-Artigues. Beyond the Pourtalet pass, the upper part of the Ossau valley leads in to Aragon...

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