Long ignored by mass tourism, this tranquil region is fast becoming France's hot new destination says Sue Aran who lives in the Gers where she runs French Country Adventures guided tours of Gascony…
The area of Gascony is bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, the south by the Pyrénées mountains, the east by Toulouse and the north by the vineyards of Bordeaux. It’s a region that’s sprinkled with ancient Roman ruins and humble bastides and it remains as historically rich as it was in medieval times.
Unchanged since the 1950s by industry, tourism or major highways, its landscape has remained agricultural for centuries. Soft white clouds languish in deep blue skies above fields of bright yellow sunflowers, sun-kissed vineyards that stretch to the horizon, and velvet green pastures dotted with gaggles of geese and cream-coloured cows, Gascony’s appeal is seductively earthy, full-bodied and lusty, like its wines. It’s a culinary heartland of
garlic, foie gras, duck confit, and France’s oldest brandy, Armagnac, and is as authentically farm-to-table as it gets.
Gascony entered recorded history during the reign of Julius Caesar as the core territory of Roman Aquitania. Its fertile soil was nourished by the rivers descending from the Pyrénées to the plains below. In his memoir, Caesar described the machinations occurring during his nine years of fighting the Gauls, an alliance of nine tribes which included the Vascones. The Vascones defined a confederacy of non-Romanised tribes who inhabited both sides of the Pyrénées and shared common traditions. By the late 6th century several of their tribes moved north, over the Pyrénées, and down into the territory they called Vasconia, which now comprises the seven departments in southwestern France called
Where is Gascony?