Aire-sur-l'Adour

Aire-sur-l'Adour
region	Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Department	Country
Arrondissement	Mont-de-Marsan
Canton	Adour Armagnac ( main town )
Community association	Aire-sur-l'Adour
Coordinates	43 ° 42 ′  N , 0 ° 16 ′  W Coordinates: 43 ° 42 ′  N , 0 ° 16 ′  W
height	68-176 m
surface	57.78 km 2
Residents	6,129 (January 1, 2017)
Population density	106 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code	40800
INSEE code	40001
Website	Community website
Sainte-Quitterie church

Aire-sur-l'Adour is a commune in the Landes department in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine (before 2016: Aquitaine ). The municipality belongs to the arrondissement of Mont-de-Marsan and is the capital of the canton of Adour Armagnac (until 2015: capital of the canton of Aire-sur-l'Adour ). The small town with 6,129 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) is located on Via Podiensis , one of the French sections of the Camino de Santiago to Santiago de Compostela .

Geography and traffic

Aire-sur-l'Adour is located in southwest France, 150 kilometers south of Bordeaux , 50 kilometers north of Pau and 30 kilometers southeast of Mont-de-Marsan on the Adour River . It was the capital of the Tursan region , a historical province of Gascony .
The nearest international airport is the Aéroport de Pau-Pyrénées . It is served by the companies Air France , Air Arabia and Twinjet . There are regular flight connections to the airports in London , Paris , Ajaccio (July to September), Lyon , Marrakech and Marseille . The airport can be reached in a southerly direction via the D834 and the A65 motorway after around 45 kilometers of road. The nearest train station is in Mont-de-Marsan . There are bus connections to Agen , Auch , Mont-de-Marsan , Pau and Tarbes . Aire-sur-l'Adour is connected to the French trunk road network via the Autoroute A65 (Bordeaux - Pau). The nearest entrances and exits are numbered 3 (Aire-sur-l'Adour Sud) and 4 (Aire-sur-l'Adour Nord).

history

The place may have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The remains of a pre-Roman nymphaeum (spring sanctuary) can be found in the crypt of the Sainte-Quitterie church on the Le Mas hill in the south of the city . In Roman times the place had a city wall, the remains of which can still be visited, and under the name Atura was one of the main places of the Aquitaine people of the Tarusati . The first mention of it comes from the year 506. At this time Aire was part of the Visigothic Empire and became known through the publication of a uniform legal book ( Lex Romana Visigothorum ).

Thereafter nothing is known until the 10th century.

Presumably at the time of Count Guillaume Sanche from Gascogno , a Benedictine monastery was built on the site of the old sanctuary. In him the Holy Quitterie was venerated as a martyr. According to French legend, she was a Catholic princess at the time of the Arian Visigoths who refused to change her creed and was beheaded in Aire for it. Allegedly afterwards she carried her head in her own hands up the hill where her church stands today.

Since the 11th century, the church was owned by La Chaise-Dieu Abbey . In 1228 the hill and the church were united with the town of Aire on the river bank, and the local bishop has held the title of d'Aire et de Sainte-Quitterie du Mas since that time . The bishopric existed until the time of the French Revolution .

Number of inhabitants
(source:)

year	1793	1836	1861	1886	1921	1954	1968	1982	1990	1999	2006	2010	2017
Residents	3.164	4,028	5,144	4,684	3,721	4,841	5,665	6,242	6,205	6,033	6,089	6,279	6.129
From 1962 official figures excluding residents with a second residence

Way of St. James ( Via Podiensis )

In the Middle Ages, Aire-sur-l'Adour was an important pilgrimage station before the Pyrenees . Today the place offers four pilgrim hostels (French: Gîte d'étape ), hotels and private rooms (French: Chambre d'hôtes ) as well as a campsite and a tourist information center. The path leaves the Adour river and leads through a fertile plain before it is replaced by the chain of hills of the Pyrenees foothills . Here meadows, small forests and the old villages on the hills determine the picture. The next larger town is Miramont-Sensacq , before it goes to Arzacq-Arraziguet via Pimbo . The road connection to Pimbo is via the D2, D111 route.

Attractions

Saint-Jean-Baptiste Cathedral

The cathedral of Aire , consecrated to John the Baptist from the 12th to 14th centuries, is the second main church of the diocese of Aire and Dax , which has its headquarters in Dax . Both in the Hundred Years War and in the Wars of Religion , the cathedral was badly damaged, so that not much of the origins of the Romanesque church can be seen.

Sainte-Quitterie abbey church

The church is located on the Mas hill in the southwest of the parish. It was built in Gothic style in the 13th and 14th centuries, except for the nave , which is dated to the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century.

In 1998 the church was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Camino de Santiago in France .

Emergence

It was built on the site of an ancient Roman temple. This was consecrated to the god Mars , as can be concluded from a floor plate decorated with laurels. The temple was converted into a baptistery in late Roman times .

In the 11th century, the Benedictine monks of La Chaise-Dieu received the Sainte-Quitterie-du-Mas church as a gift from Bishop Pierre I of Aire. They built a monastery in the neighborhood to promote the veneration of the legendary Gothic princess and martyr Sainte-Quitterie .

The buildings were destroyed in 1569 by the troops of Gabriel de Lorges and were subsequently considerably rebuilt. The church itself was rebuilt in Gothic style in the 13th century.

The importance of the episcopal city decreased at the time of the Huguenot Wars . The monastery was dissolved and turned into a seminary in 1661 before being secularized. A vocational school moved into the building, and the bishopric then housed the town hall.

architecture

The nave was built as an extension of the crypt . The latter consists of an apse and two side chapels . Your entrance is in the southern choir chapel. Individual remains of frescoes date from the 14th century.

The choir of the church shows remarkable Romanesque arcatures with figuratively designed capitals . The most beautiful pairs of pillars, with ornate stylobates and arches, stand on both sides of the apse. The marble altarpieces in the choir and in the side aisles were designed by the Mazzetti brothers .

Behind a vestibule, which opens with a pointed arch in the facade, there is a Gothic stepped portal that was badly damaged during the Huguenot Wars. In the tympanum one recognizes the enthroned Jesus. The two girders drawn in underneath show hell below and paradise above. The three arches are provided with a series of representations (angels with halos, apostles and prophets ). The reveals are decorated with columns in front.

A square tower with three rows of window openings rises above the buttress- supported facade. The Saint-Béat white marble sarcophagus is decorated with sculptures believed to date from the fourth or fifth century. According to tradition, they should have contained their relics until the 16th century. The surrounding relief shows Adam and Eve, the baptism of Jesus, the Good Shepherd , Daniel in the lions' den , Lazarus and, on the sides, the dream and sea voyage of Jonas .

economy

Only a small part of the population still works (city 2015) in agriculture (4.4%). Local production focuses on grain, fruit and vegetables as well as wine, which is sold under the name Tursan VDQS . Foie gras is available in the market from November to February .

Aire-sur-l'Adour is home to an institute of the French space agency CNES , which mainly deals with research balloons, and the aerospace company Potez . The company Potez was taken over in 1967 by Sud Aviation , which merged in 1970 to form Société Nationale Industrielle Aérospatiale (SNIAS) , which was merged into EADS in 2000 .

Town twinning

• Castro Urdiales in Spain (Cantabria Autonomous Region)

literature

• Bettina Forst: French Way of St. James. From Le Puy-en-Velay to Roncesvalles. All stages - with variants and height profiles (= Rother hiking guide ). Bergverlag Rother, Munich (recte: Ottobrunn) 2007, ISBN 978-3-7633-4350-8 .
• Bert Teklenborg: Cycling along the Camino de Santiago. From the Rhine to the western end of Europe. (Cycling guide, route planner). 3rd revised edition. Publishing House Tyrolia, Innsbruck 2007, ISBN 978-3-7022-2626-8 .

Web links

Commons : Aire-sur-l'Adour  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Aire-sur-l'Adour Canton Tourist Office
• Along the Via Podiensis

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Congregational information on annuaire-mairie.fr (French) Retrieved on January 21, 2010
2. ↑ Aire-sur-l'Adour on Cassini.ehess.fr (French) Retrieved January 5, 2018
3. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Site - Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.Retrieved on February 4, 2010
4. ↑ INSEE, Table T8 EMP (French). Accessed May 2019.

Way of St. James " Via Podiensis "

← Previous location: Barcelonne-du-Gers 2 km  | Aire-sur-l'Adour  | Next town: Latrille 13.2 km  →