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El Señorío de Bértiz, un palais, un jardin et un parc naturel, au cœur des Pyrénées atlantiques de Navarre by Daniel LARRALDE DEL SOLAR – Archives du Calvados
The Señorío de Bértiz estate is located in Navarre, mid-way between Hendaye and Pamplona. It stretches across a surface area of 20.4km² in a mountainous zone, the altitude of which ranges from 100 metres on the banks of the Bidasoa to 830 metres at the summit of its highest peak, Mount Aizkolegi.
The very first written reference to the estate dates back to 1392. Its owner, Pedro Miguel Bértiz, was appointed ‘Merino de las Montañas’ – a judge with considerable jurisdiction – by the King of Navarre, Carlos III el Noble.
Yet it was Don Pedro Ciga, the estate’s last private owner, in the early 20th century, who offered the site the artistic and landscaped heritage we can still admire today. Over and above the reconstruction of several architectural features, including the former palace, he extended the gardens, offering them their present-day outline and endowed them with fountains, ponds, pergolas and arbours of romantic and modernist inspiration. He also created an access slope to the summit of Mount Aizkolegi, upon which he had a second residence built, offering panoramic views over the mountains and the ocean on the horizon.
Due to its isolated geographical position, amateurs of gardens and romantic ruins, and researchers were, for a long time, totally oblivious to the existence of the Bértiz estate. Recent studies and restoration campaigns have put this oblivion to rights and have breathed a new lease of life into the memory of the palace, garden, forest and their respective owners.
In Bértiz, the palace, garden and forest enliven the sensitive and rural spirit so true to Navarre.
Daniel Larralde del Solar
Daniel Larralde del Solar is a qualified architect, who graduated from the University of Navarre in 2000. In Pamplona, he works with the architects Francisco Mangado and Tabuenca & Leach, among others. Following a Master’s Degree in landscape architecture at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, then a bursary from the National Graduate Landscaping School in Versailles, he worked as a landscape designer with Michel Desvigne’s landscaping consultancy on garden and public space projects. His taste for heritage led him to specialise in historic gardens via a JHPP (historic gardens, heritage and landscape) Master’s Degree at the National Graduate Landscaping School in Versailles, in 2020. He has since developed heritage projects, in particular in association with his home region, Navarre.