Oloron-Sainte-Marie is a town at the foot of the Pyrenees, in the picturesque Ossau Valley. It has a nice, historic building, decorated with the Romanesque-Gothic church of St. Maria.
The city was created from the merger of two villages, which in the past competed with each other due to their location on the trade route and the possibility of profiting from this. A small river flows in its center, to which houses are turned with their high walls without exits. This creates a wall at the edge of which only balconies and small terraces protrude.
The highlight of Oloron-Sainte-Marie is the 12th-century Church of St. Maria. It is a temple that had the status of a cathedral in the past and is still called so by the locals. It is entered on the UNESCO list along with other monuments of the Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela. A great example of Romanesque sculpture is the entrance portal with representations of saints and biblical scenes.
