Saint- Jean - Pied - De - Port

Capital of Low-Navarre, St-Jean-Pied-De-Port owe this term to its situation in the foot of the "Port" or "Collar" of Roncevaux, 8 km separates it from the Spanish border, and 76 from Pampelune, 55 from Bayonne and Biarritz, 100 of Pau and 120 from Lourdes. Natural crossroads where the ways converge serving all the Basque Country, the Charles-de-Gaulle place is the starting point of an interesting circuit in the heart of the old city.
Office of Tourism: Departure of the visit,
Door of Navarre: Bored in the wall, marked out with bartizan and provided with right archery, this door kept the characteristic pace of the doors of the enclosure of XIIIth century. Passing the vault, on the left go up of a yard a staircase of access to the path of round, then two beautiful typical homes in corbelling. On right-hand side, the first house has the memory of the Apostle of the Indies, Saint François-Xavier, On its neighbor (Candau) notice the date of current construction: 1796 4e AR (4e year of the Republic) and, between two stars, a stylized Phrygian cap.
Church Notre-Dame-du-Bout-du-Pont: Stands up opposite the large triangular gable wall with purplished apparatus of the Church with its oculus and its gate with posts from the radiant Gothic (XIVth century). The first fondations seem to go up to the primitive Church built by king Sanche the Forteress after his victory over the Landesish in Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). The interior, with a broad nave, two sides and two floors of tribunes, presents a slim whole of pillars and pink sandstone columns. On both sides of the polygonal chorus, two curvilinear triangles received stained glasses with the weapons of the city and province (chains of Navarre). From the front the Church, the street of the Citadel goes up stiff inclined. It is framed by frontages where the stone is largely used, with alternation of colors, overflowing eaves with worked beams. The lintels are chiseled with speaking inscriptions, embroidered of geometrical drawings or religious symbols.
1510, Arcanzola House: The oldest epigraphy appears on a house that is remarkable by its floors with sides of wood and rubble filling of bricks of "stop fish". In 1531 the Blissful Jean de Mayorga saw the day. Jesuit martyrized in the Canaries by a calvinist privateer. In the alignment, a carved head testifies to a construction dating to the middle age’s end. On both sides there are doors in semicircular arch with large archstones. Prison known as of the Bishops: The date of 1584 is encrusted on the house of the Bishops whom a garden separates from the building called "Prison of the Bishops". This recalls that St-Jean-Foot-of-Port was for three times, between 1383 and 1417, an episcopal residence from the will of the Pope of Avignon, at the time of the Great Schism of the West. The monument is curious in its current state: the entry to the paving of rollers opens on the body of guard followed of disciplinary cells and on the staircase of access to an impressive underground room arched in warhead. In this moment, a new evocation, a mysterious prison to escape... in the Middle Ages with the Pilgrim of Saint-Jacques.
Door of St-Jacques: Completing the street of the Citadel. Adoor that is registered within the Inheritance of humanity by UNESCO and which owes its name to the passing of the pilgrims of Compostelle, it offers a pretty glance on the plain of Cize. A rapid glance on a sporting and school complex of first order. In front of Jai Alai, a large masonry downwards where one plays Cesta Punla (Basque Pinocle), one finds the low-relief of Juan de Huarte, who is a doctor philosopher and a precursory of the vocational guidance, author of a famous work used by Montesquieu in "Spirit of the Laws".
The Citadel: In overhang, the spur and the imposing mass of the Citadel (600 m on 150 m), kept the mark of Vauban. A paved slope leads to the monumental arc (Door of Roy) and to the crescent moon.
Point of view: A plan of orientation makes it possible to admire a marvellous panorama there on the valley and its circus of mountains. From the lower part of the drawbridge with rocker communicating with the House of the Governors on whom a fine pinnacle rises, an interior covered way (staircase-postern of 269 steps) can be taken in dry weather. It leads by the Door of the bartizan against the bedside to five sides of the Church on the edges of Nive. To join them, the less assured walker will rather reconsider his steps to take the...
Path of schoolchildren: Being, on the left between the two bastions, in the form of staircase in the forest communicating with the way of Saint-Jacques connecting by another staircase the road of Çaro.
Path of Ronde: To the first door on the left, a pleasant walk on the top of ramparts before coming down again to the Door of France..
Door of France: Which owes its name to the orientation towards France.
Mansart House: the Town hall settled there since 1935. Beautiful harmonious, symmetrical and regular frontage out of pink sandstone. Pont-Neuf: Although built in 1900, Astonishing sight on the river, the Bridge on Nive, the houses and balconies reflecting themselves in water, and the Citadel dominating the whole.
Floquet Place: This one was born of the Citadel, in 1828. In a famous duel, it wounded the General Baker. On right-hand side, under the garden of Zuharpeta, Donibane Garazi, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in Basque, letters of flowers.
Door of Spain: it opens on the Roman way which went from Bordeaux to Astorga, becoming later Napoleon Route and renamed Route of the Marshal Harispe. Today, way used by the Pilgrims going to St-Jacques-de-Compostelle, before crossing the Pyrenees and stopping in Roncevaux after 7 H of walk.
Bridge and Alleys of Eyheraberry: Before crossing the Door of Spain, with the two monumental pillars, moving towards the municipal Pediment, while skirting the large arcades of supporting. The bridge of Eyheraberry (new mill), of Roman invoice, goes up in fact, to 1640, and was a short cut towards Spain. After the Revolution, these royal mills would have been sold to build the bell-tower of the Church.
Bridge of the Church: Was a ford on which opened up the door to harrow..
Street of Spain: An inscription "Andre Fitère the year 1789" reveals in a written form the price of wheat at one time when the beams were primarily oral.
House of the States of Navarre: The largest masonry of the city (1610). The escutcheon was hammered as a sign of revolt. Glances on the lintels where sometimes trades are engraved in the stone. All this set making the historical richness of this city with the pink sandstone walls and the paved ground