The Hotel Bristol Pau invites you to discover its town, which has been awarded the "Active and Sporting Town" label. 400 towns entered the competition to win the label, 200 towns were awarded and only 6 deserved the highest distinction, including Pau.

Sport represents the identity and pride of an entire region. The Pau Béarn Pyrénées conurbation supports top-level sport through its support for major clubs and major international events. This helps to create social links around attractions.

Pau, a sporting capital, draws its wealth from a multitude of all-round champions such as Tony Estanguet, three-time Olympic champion and one of the most eminent flag-bearers, and his older brother Patrice, who contributed to the creation of the white water park in 2008.

Pau is home to the oldest golf course on the continent.

Grand prix automobile de Pau - May 2022

The Hôtel Bristol presents a unique event taking place in the city of Pau that is not to be missed: the Grand Prix automobile.

It's a chance to admire all the new automotive technologies and see demonstrations. The aim of the event is to showcase the new energies used to drive these super-powered racing cars.

The programme includes the 1st round of the 1st FIA ETCR Electric Touring World Cup, the 1st round of the famous FIA WTCR Touring World Cup, single-seaters in the Euroformula Open, the FFSA F4 French Championship...

Watch drivers from all over the world battle it out to cross the finish line on a circuit just 10 minutes from the Hôtel Bristol Pau on 6, 7 and 8 May 2022 to discover the new technologies on board modern cars.

During the same month, on the weekend of 21 May, take a trip back in time with a car race featuring vintage cars.

Discover the Pau racecourse

Pau's racecourse and golf course are very old and were the first on the continent. They were built by the English when Pau was still an English resort town (late 19th century, early 20th century) before Biarritz.

After a year behind closed doors due to the pandemic, the Hôtel Bristol Pau presents the city's racecourse, which can finally welcome its public back.

Spread over an area of 40 hectares, with 110 boxes, 12 stalls and home to some fifteen trainers with around 1,000 horses, this visit will blow you away.

Located a 15-minute drive from the Hôtel Bristol, it is easily accessible. Built on the Pont-Long site, the Pau racecourse is one of the jewels in Pau's crown. It is rightly considered by professionals in the equestrian world to be the second racecourse in France behind Auteuil.

The Pont-Long site offers a variety of courses, including indoor and outdoor hurdle and steeplechase tracks, steeplechase figure-eight tracks and a cross-country course.

Enough of following your favourite jockeys on television, come and meet them and place your bets on their performances at the winter meeting, where several races are designated "PMU". This award has given the town a national reputation, with all the betting in France concentrated in Pau.

The famous white water stadium in Pau Béarn Pyrénées

If you're a thrill-seeker, the Hôtel Bristol Pau offers you the chance to take part in an adventure at the Pont d'Espagne White Water Sports Centre, one of the region's most emblematic venues. Located in the heart of the Rives du Gave Urban Nature Park, the stadium was the venue for the 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2020 World Cup slalom races.

This park is an artificial whitewater stadium inaugurated in 2009, located in Bizanos, a town near Pau. It is the training centre for the French national canoeing and kayaking slalom team. It was the first of three sites used for the Canoe Slalom World Cup in 2009. It is also a recreational water park for the general public.

The site includes a course 300 metres long and 15 metres wide with a gradient of 2%, a 7500 m start and finish pool, amphitheatre seating for 2,000 and a conveyor belt to return to the start.