Paulilles

Paulilles is a protected area on the Mediterranean Sea, located between the towns of Port-Vendres, and Banyuls-sur-Mer in Pyrénées-Orientales, North Catalonia, France.HistoryThe Dynamite FactoryPaulilles Recreational Park occupies a rehabilitated dynamite factory site protected as an ecological network by the Natura 2000 European organisation. Originally serving as the French Nobel Dynamite Factory, it was created by Nobel's associate in France, Paul François Barbe, and built in 1870.Protecting the environmentIn July 1991, the installations were closed by the Société nationale des poudres et des explosifs, and later sold to the Conservatoire du littoral in 1998 to protect the area from real estate developers. In 2005, the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales launched the renovation to ready 9 buildings, destroy nearly 70, and landscape 17 hectares to turn Paulilles into a free and ecological recreational park, a museum on the industrial heritage of the factory and a traditional Catalan boat repair facility. Paulilles opens to the public in June 2008.