D E T A I L S WHERE: Gascony, south- west France START/FINISH: Mont-de- Marsan DISTANCE: 350km over six days PICTURES: Lynda and Patrick Walsh GASCONY | GREAT RIDES Great rides Sampling the UNPACKING local spirit GASCONY Lynda and Patrick Walsh travelled from the United States to SW France by ’plane and train, with their tandem in two suitcases ean stood on a gravelled rooftop in We were riding a 350-kilometre, six-day Do it yourself Lectoure and pointed to his bicycle, loop through Gascony. In Paris, we’d felt like J a rusted mixte propped against one tourists, drifting through the city on foot but G E T T I N G T O of the stubby stone walls that were the only not engaged with it. Here in the south-west GASCONY things preventing cars from driving onto roofs of France, the tandem put us in touch with We flew into Paris and took in this precipitous town. He pointed first to the countryside. We felt the temperature drop trains to Mont-de-Marsan, the bicycle and then to his paunch. ‘I bike in each oak hollow, heard geese honk as they our starting point in Gascony. to stay in shape,’ he said with a wink and a pecked and scratched in grassy fields. We Most TGV trains have smoker’s smile. Jean was a metalworker, out learned to smell the blackberry patches before compartments that accept for a joyride on a Sunday afternoon. He said we saw them, and the rain before it fell. We assembled bicycles, and the spaces can be reserved online. on a clear day you could see to the Pyrenees started noticing the faint shell motifs etched Many of the regional RER from this spot on the south-west rampart on pillars and posts that had led pilgrims from trains carry bikes as well, of his medieval-walled hometown. When he all over Europe for a thousand years toward though this is first-come, first- heard we had ridden to Lectoure on a tandem the shrine of Santiago de Compostela. We served. Assembled tandems are not carried on any train from Mont-de-Marsan, he did the same thing marvelled at the range of local machinations but folding or coupled bikes everybody in Gascony did – said ‘Oof!’ and for warding birds off the abundant cherry crop in standard-size cases are made an undulating hand gesture. – scarecrows, CD-ROMs, bags of eggshells, treated as luggage. We had no Our elevation profile for the past three days even the dangling corpses of dead birds. difficulty getting hotels at the had resembled a saw blade: two kilometres In Paris, we felt invisible. In Gascony, it beginning and end of our tour to store our bike cases while up, two kilometres down, two kilometres up… was different. Chickens and dogs craned their we rode. We tipped the staff. not steep slopes but not trivial either. After sleepy necks as we pedalled by. If we stopped a long day of this, we were stretching our to route-check in front of a Romanesque legs with a stroll around Lectoure when we church or a saffron-stuccoed house for more ended up on the same rooftop as Jean. He than five minutes, someone invariably popped said he wished his wife would ride with him. out to ask us if we were all right, if we needed He recommended we stop in Saint-Puy for the something to eat, if we knew the wind was melons. Then he went back to searching for due to pick up that afternoon… And when we the Pyrenees across a moody, late-afternoon said where we were planning to stay that night, landscape of wheat fields, vineyards, and oak further on down the road, then came that copses, and we went on our way. sympathetic ‘oof!’ and the undulating hand. FAINT SHELL MOTIFS ETCHED ON PILLARS AND POSTS HAD LED PILGRIMS TOWARDS SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA FOR 1,000 YEARS CYCLINGUK.ORG CYCLE 47 GASCONY | GREAT RIDES Above: Approaching the hilltop town of Lectoure Far left: Éauze, 130km from the Spanish border Near left: Foie gras is a Gascon speciality GASCONY’S GASTRONOMY a surprising array of accommodation for its of our legs. But fortified with a travel flask Our goal for the bike-tour portion of our trip size, due to its renowned hot springs. Well of armagnac procured from a garage distiller was freewheeling: to ride through Gascony appointed and open to the public, the springs in Montréal (who asked us with a twinkle while sampling its twin gastronomic trophies are set in a picturesque garden framed by in his eye what we thought of our presidential – armagnac (cognac’s southern, spicy cousin) palm trees, lotus ponds, and a fragment of choices for 2016), we soldiered on to and foie gras. While the topography of the area an old Templar fortress. Larressingle. is like an egg carton – hills no matter which We enjoyed the comforts of Barbotan so On a footprint smaller than a Walmart, way you turn – we aimed to dodge the serious much we stayed on an extra night, fitting Larressingle bundled a 13th-century château, business of the Pyrenean foothills by trending in a day loop to Éauze that took us to two a museum, an excellent little shop offering roughly west-to-east and back. armagnac distilleries, both excellent. At wares by local artisans, a café serving fresh To start, we took the train from Paris Domaine de Pujo, the doyenne shared her dim strawberry milkshakes, and an apartment to Mont-de-Marsan and assembled our view of the labour strikes up north, labelling for sale in the fortress walls (for a buyer Co-Motion Primera at the train station, them ‘the shame of France’ and vowing such who wouldn’t mind parking outside the moat). stashing the two cases and the rest of our a thing would never happen in Gascony. Her If the church in Larressingle impressed unneeded luggage at the Hôtel Richelieu, counterpart at Domaine du Tariquet plied with its sober antiquity, the airy Gothic arches where we were planning to return. We then us with glasses of both armagnac and floc and jewel-like windows of the cathedral in followed the level, gorgeously paved voie verte (a delicious regional fortified wine), all the Condom dropped our jaws to the marble out of town for almost 20 miles through beech while keeping an eye on her giggling grand- floor. Pronounced ‘cone dome’ and completely forests – until the path dissolved first to gravel daughters, who were being led around the uninvolved in the prophylactic business, and then, after a few more miles, to mud, manicured château grounds on horseback this pretty burg on the banks of the Baïse thanks to the recent floods. by their Uncle Remy. nevertheless boasts a life-size bronze of Lacking knobbly tires and loaded a bit too Gascony’s legendary four musketeers (don’t heavily for sloppy terrain, we left the voie FOUR MUSKETEERS forget D’Artagnan!). verte at Arthez d’Armagnac, at a terracotta Then it was on towards Lectoure. The road A few more hours of chugging climbs and church poised at the end of a fig tree-lined there led us through a series of stunning swift descents brought us to Lectoure and a path. From there, we followed paved country Medieval villages – all perched on hilltops to wistful perspective north over the medieval city roads to Barbotan-les-Thermes, which offers the benefit of their defences and the detriment walls from our room at the Hôtel de Bastard. PASSING PILGRIMS THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE AREA IS LIKE AN After our chat with Jean, a swim in the hotel pool, and a good night’s rest, we woke to EGG CARTON – HILLS EVERY WAY YOU TURN church bells and a delicious spread downstairs CYCLINGUK.ORG CYCLE 49 GREAT RIDES | GASCONY Fact file Left: Lupiac, home U N P A C K I N G of D’Artagnan GASCONY Above: Larressingle, DISTANCE: 350km in six days, not far from averaging 58km per day. Condom ROUTE: An elliptical route east-west through Armagnac country, from Mont-de-Marsan out to Lectoure and of Brebis cheese, acacia honey, local ham, and downed both on a bench in the farmer’s back, roughly tracking two Santiago and bread. Then we pedalled our way back garden. Then we climbed out of the Adour de Compostela pilgrimage routes. We had overnights in Barbotan-les-Thermes west and south into the Ténarèze zone of river valley onto a plateau patchworked with (with a day loop to Éauze), Lectoure, armagnac production, sandwiched between fields and elm forests. That night promised Aignan, and Eugénie-les-Bains. the two larger regions of Bas- and Haut- the big splurge of our tour – a stay at Eugénie- CONDITIONS: Mostly cool and cloudy, Armagnac. We also rode into the rain for the les-Bains, the sylvan haven of Napoleon III’s unusual for June; some dirt sections first time on our tour, but it failed to dampen second empress. We slept in a converted of the voie verte were unrideable due our spirits. convent and still dream about the triple- to rain. We gaped through the mists at a 50-foot decked cheese cart and the warm, white-clay ACCOMMODATION: Hotels and cedar outside the mottled stone walls of bath at the spa. It’s hard to say which felt chambres d’hôtes (B&Bs). Terraube. We stopped to dry off at the Abbaye more welcome after five hilly days.