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"A languid bamboo tilts in the fragrant evening." The
soothing effect of life under the Asian skies? No, Pau. Pau, the
garden town, as described by Anna de Noailles. One hundred years
later, the bamboos are still there, along with the American sequoias,
Lebanese cedars, Chinese Ginkgo Biloba, Mexican cacti, agaves, opuntias,
along with traditionally French oak, lime, beech and birch trees.
And those palms with a backdrop of white mountain tips from the
Pyrenees boulevard's balcony, therein lies a captivating illustration
of Pau's microclimate.
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10° C on average
in the winter, 24 °C in the summer, a deep and fertile soil, and
a high hygrometry reading, no wind… |
| Pau has
everything it needs to grow like a garden. Even in the XVIth century,
the castle's park and Antoine de Bourbon's trimmed box-trees reputations'
extended throughout Europe. Worthy heirs of their father's taste for
gardens, Henri IV and his sister, Catherine de Navarre, added a variety
of Spanish fragrances to the local foliage. In the XIXth century came
the English, who then decorated their endeared retreat with numerous
sumptuous parks. |
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Today Pau, classified
"4 flowers" since 1983, has more square meters of greenery
per inhabitant than any other town in Europe. |
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royal park's forests to the castle's ornamental gardens, from the
rail station park's lemon trees to Lawrence Park's blue cedars, from
the delightful Pyrenean garden in Beaumont Park to the royal court's
lime trees, from the Italian plaza's allies lined with century old
oaks, a garden offers itself to all visitors. |
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