Arudy: its history through its streets.
Camping Le Rey is located 4 km from Arudy, a 5-minute drive away.
Arudy Tourist Office. Tel. +33 (0)5 59 05 77 11
Don’t miss out: lively and picturesque guided tours led by the Tourist Office team.
Markets in Arudy
- Tuesdays and Saturdays in the morning in Arudy square, under the covered market and under the town hall arcades.
The fairs of Arudy
- The spring fair: third Sunday in March
- The autumn fair: third Sunday in October
Arudy Festivities
- Second Sunday in June
The village of Aruri or Eruri, cradle of prehistory
First mentioned in the 13th century, it took its definitive name of Arudy at the end of the Middle Ages.
The first inhabitants of the valley settled in the caves of Arudy and left traces of their passage.
Visit the Arudy museum, ‘La Maison d’Ossau’. Tel: +33 (0)5 59 05 61 71. Housed in a 17th-century residence, the museum features an exhibition on prehistory in the Pyrenees, a presentation of the Western Pyrenees National Park, including the geology, flora and fauna of the Ossau Valley, and the history of the Ossau shepherds.
Don’t hesitate to take a stroll around the village, which has preserved some beautiful 16th and 17th century houses.
There is a signposted route to discover the Ossalian way of life and the urban architecture of Arudy.
From the town hall, head down towards St-Germain church and stop in front of its flamboyant Gothic doorway.
Then continue along Rue du Moulin, which runs alongside the canal.
You will notice the low walls of the canal, strange battlements made of sloping stone slabs, joined together in pairs to form a V shape. This is actually a huge wash house that was used for washing skins. Dozens of tanners worked here for the furriers of Arudy. The skins of all the animals in the area, such as wild fowl, lambs, calves and even Pyrenean sheep, were turned into leather and furs, as well as astrakhan, which arrived in bales. This activity earned the inhabitants of the village the nickname ‘lous pellâcas d’Arudy’ (the ‘dog skinners’).
The Church of Saint Germain in Arudy: It dates back to the end of the 12th century and was modified and enlarged at the beginning of the 16th century. Note the ribbed vaults and the decorative and symbolic keystones. In the choir, you can see the lion of Saint Mark, the angel of Saint Matthew, the eagle of Saint John and the winged ox of Saint Luke. Another engraving depicts two cows and two bears, emblems of the Ossau Valley.
Arudy
In this part of Béarn, the Ossau Valley will surely strike you as one of the most charming, as long as you take the time to discover its varied landscapes and heritage.
It is a place to relax and unwind.
As an administrative and commercial centre, Arudy has all the services and shops you need for a pleasant stay.
The traditional dwellings of Ossau are suited to a typical pastoral economy (cattle and sheep farming), based on transhumance in summer to the mountains and in winter to the foothills and the Aquitaine basin.
In Arudy, these rural houses stand alongside urban dwellings, near the church, and the houses of minor nobles, craftsmen and merchants.
A region of marble quarries that have been exploited since the Renaissance, Arudy’s diverse urban architecture offers many examples of undeniable taste and artistry in building, from the 15th century to the present day.
