Gascony
Why go?
Let the TGV train whisk you from Paris to Agen in five hours. You
arrive in the heart of Gascony, one of the least touched areas of
France. The gently rolling Gers and the Lot-et-Garonne - Stendhal's
‘French Tuscany’ - are known as the orchard of France.
Apples, pears, cherries grow in abundance, the prune d’Ente
is used to make the pruneau d’Agen. Vineyards roll for miles,
harvested for the wines of Buzet and the brandies of armagnac and
floc. Long poplar-lined roads are traffic-free, geese are fattened,
cows munch, and nobody feels guilty dreaming of foie gras. This is
the swashbuckling land of The Three Musketeers and – in real
history - of the Hundred Years War, whose legacy is a glorious
string of hilltop bastides. Life is lived slowly in the Gers. It is
‘la France profonde’.
Gascony (in regional terms, the Midi Pyrenees and the Aquitaine)
has one of the most varied landscapes of France. To the north of
the Gers is the Dordogne, to the west is Les Landes: a vast
Atlantic-pounded coast, bracingly long beaches, gorgeous dunes. The
coastline, beloved of campers and families, lacks the pizzazz of
the Cote d’Azur - but European surfing started on the Cote
Basque, and Biarritz is a surfers’ paradise. Bask in
Basqueness on the borders of Spain, where the signs are in French
and Euskara. From St Jean de Luz, the loveliest old port town on
the Atlantic, it’s a gentle day trip into the hinterland; its
landscape is seductive, its backdrop is the Pyrenees.
Launch into those Pyrenean mountains and vast circular valleys
– or ‘cirques’ - from central Pau, served by
frequent trains on the Bayonne-Toulouse line. On the very border of
Spain, the wildlife-rich Parc National des Pyrenees is protected
from ski resorts and mountain restaurants, so get your thrills from
rugged canyons, teeming torrents and hundreds of lakes. The Hautes
Pyrenees is an outdoors-lover’s dream.