Espelette (; ; oc, Espeleta) is a
commune in the
Pyrénées-Atlantiques department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
in south-western
France.
INSEE commune file
/ref> It lies in the traditional Basque province of Labourd
Labourd ( eu, Lapurdi; la, Lapurdum; Gascon: ''Labord'') is a former French province and part of the present-day Pyrénées Atlantiques ''département''. It is one of the traditional Basque provinces, and identified as one of the territorial c ...
.
Sights
The town is attractive, with traditional Labourd houses and a castle. The protected sixteenth-century church, Saint-Etienne, has a Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
altarpiece, and its graveyard has many traditional Basque discoidal tombstones
Hilarri (from Basque ''hil'' 'dead' and ''harri'' 'stone') is the name given to disk-shaped funerary steles that are typical of the Basque Country.
These funerary steles present a disc-shaped head facing the rising sun on a trapezoidal stand. ...
.
Notable people
* Agnès Souret, the first woman ever chosen as Miss France, in 1920, is buried in Espelette. She died in Argentina, aged 26, in 1928, and her body was repatriated to Espelette by her mother, who sold most of her possessions to provide a resting place for her daughter.
* Father Armand David
Father Armand David (7 September 1826, Espelette – 10 November 1900, Paris) was a Lazarist missionary Catholic priest as well as a zoologist and a botanist.
Several species, such as Père David's deer, are named after him — be ...
(1826–1900), a Lazarist missionary Catholic priest as well as a zoologist and a botanist, was born in Espelette.
Red peppers
Espelette is known for its dried red peppers, used whole or ground to a hot powder, used in the production of Bayonne ham
Bayonne ham or is a cured ham that takes its name from the ancient port city of Bayonne in the far southwest of France, a city located in both the cultural regions of Basque Country and Gascony. It has PGI status.
Production
The area conc ...
. The peppers are designated as Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée and are hung to dry outside many of the houses and shops in the village during the summer. The peppers are sold in the town's Wednesday covered market and are honoured in a festival on the last Sunday in October.
See also
* Communes of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department
References
External links
*
Ezpeleta in the Bernardo Estornés Lasa — Auñamendi Encyclopedia (Euskomedia Fundazioa)
*
Piment d'Espelette
site dedicated to the pepper
Image:France-Espelette-Piments sur façade-2005-08-05.jpg, Traditional Espelette house with peppers drying on the walls
Image:France-AOC Piment d'Espelette-2005-08-05.jpg, ''Piments d'Espelette'', Espelette peppers
Image:Espelette WWF.jpg, Plaque of WWF in front of Father Armand David
Father Armand David (7 September 1826, Espelette – 10 November 1900, Paris) was a Lazarist missionary Catholic priest as well as a zoologist and a botanist.
Several species, such as Père David's deer, are named after him — be ...
's birth house, inaugurated by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray in Espelette.
Communes of Pyrénées-Atlantiques
Labourd
Pyrénées-Atlantiques communes articles needing translation from French Wikipedia
{{PyrénéesAtlantiques-geo-stub
