Gascon sites rely on subtle charms

Regular readers of this blog will know that I categorise holidays in one of two ways:  Cultural or Beach.  The first kind, and the one I write about here most, usually starts in a world heritage city and seeks out the kinds of "must sees" that have been inspiring me since the history and art history classes of my youth.  The other is dedicated to pure R&R and, for me, that's always meant powdery sand and rolling surf.  Every so often beach and culture combine, as in Barcelona or Oman, but generally I like my seasides to be culture-free, so there's no call to go sightseeing and I can concentrate on tanning and snorkelling.

Gascony didn't fit either category, thus confused the hell out of me.

While we had some good weather, and a pool (with very cold water) the second week, it definitely wasn't a beach holiday.  And though there's lots of history, there are few really noteworthy sights.  This posed a tricky problem for the relentless sightseeing genes that drive my holiday DNA.  Stacks of tourist brochures and guidebook entries citing ancient Romans, the 100 Years' War and Renaissance Chateaux didn't allow me to just kick back by the pool and read a good book.  Yet when we arrived at the day's sightseeing objective, I was often disappointed.

One of my best days was a quiet, solitary walk from our rental cottage to the nearest village, Vopillon.  The two miles in between roll across wheat fields bordered with poppies and rambling wild roses.  The skies were vivid blue, I could see for miles over the rolling landscape, and only two or three cars passed in the 40 minutes it took me to cover the distance.  Vopillon itself is no more than a handful of houses with a tiny Romanesque church at its edge.  (Picture above.)  Turns out it's the only remaining bit of what was once a much bigger church, anchoring an expansive abbey, all destroyed during the French Revolution.  A local benefactor rebuilt the church in the '60s.  There's a simple beauty in its austerity and a few Medieval wall paintings revealed in the arch of a doorway.  It made for a lovely morning of  quiet reflection, but was certainly wasn't anything to write home about.  Or to fuel much of a blog entry!

This does, however, bring up the perplexing option that there might be another kind of holiday.  One where you simply hang out in a lovely place, take long walks, and occasionally wander out to see stuff that's interesting but not particularly significant.  It's given me food for thought.

Star Sights
In the mean time, if you're a cultural sightseer who's heading to Gascony and wants to hit the best stuff, here are my picks in order of preference.

La Romieu
Though there's not much left of the monastery that gave this village its name, the picturesque setting it creates, a fine restaurant and a blockbuster garden come together to make this THE "don't miss" spot of the trip.

The village was in the right place at the right time in the early 14th century, benefitting from a location on the pilgrimage route to Campostella, the move of the papacy to nearby Avignon and a powerful cardinal who decided to take advantage of both.  He funded an enormous church, monastery and palace here.  Now all that's left is part of the original church, a ruined cloister and a tower from what was the palace.  The remaining towers, both ecclesiastic and palatial, loom impressively over architecture that's now too small for them.  A village of picture-perfect stone houses decorated with colourful shutters and flowering climbers clusters in their shadow.  It's a striking architectural ensemble, best enjoyed as the backdrop to a leisurely lunch on the tiny village square at the excellent L'Etape d'Angeline.

Le Collegial Saint Pierre de la Romieu is worth the price of admission, however, purely for the medieval wall paintings in its sacristy.  I have never seen their like, either for completeness,  decorative detail or colour scheme.  The black-faced angels arching above the windows are particularly interesting, but why they were so painted has been lost to history.

Buy a combination ticket to get into the Jardins de Coursiana, a short drive away.  I certainly didn't expect to find one of the best English gardens I've ever encountered deep in the French countryside.  This place is like a series of magnificent Chelsea show gardens, with waves of colour as great drifts of perennials bloom at once.  Other times may not be so magnificent, but this particularly warm, mid-May visit delighted with cascades of roses, wisteria and clematis.  The iris were particularly striking, with varieties and colours I've never seen before, of a size nearly double the British average.  There's a gracious herb garden set in formal terraces stepping down to a lake, and it's all designed to take advantage of the view of the towers and village across the fields.

Auch Cathedral Windows
A large town to the south of Gascony and an important provincial capital just before the revolution,

Auch is a pleasant place in which to have a ramble.  The tour books will point you to the monumental staircase linking the lower and upper town, with a statue of home boy d'Artagnan half way up and the stately Tour d'Armagnac looming over it.  But you've seen staircases and towers before; you've never seen Renaissance stained glass like the windows in the cathedral.  In fact, you might not have ever seen Renaissance stained glass.  Most cathedrals either have the original Medieval stuff, or more modern (Victorian or later) replacements.

These are the pinnacle of the glassmaker's art, their luminous jewel tones brought to life with painted details.  Every face is distinct and full of emotion; you sense that you're looking at the residents of Auch, circa 1600.  Architectural backgrounds and Renaissance design details (the neo-classical creatures, putti and curlicues known as "grotesquerie") give every window a depth of detail that means you'll want to leave plenty of time to take it all in.

Seviac Roman Villa
Gaul was a stable, peaceful province for most of the Roman Empire.  Seviac benefitted from that; it is a fascinating site due to its continuous occupation.  The ruins here reflect hundreds of years of domestic evolution.  Sadly, we don't know who lived here.  The place was only discovered by a local farmer late in the last century, and there's no written evidence about it.  The sprawling floorpan and the impressive mosaics have to speak for themselves.  Afficionados of Roman villas in warmer climes will be interested in the hallways separating living rooms from the central courtyard; a nod to the colder winters.  The mosaics are mostly geometric; interesting to see a decorative scheme across a whole residence.  And the private bath complex here is both rare and particularly impressive.  Visit in May, and you'll also have the benefit of impressive iris gardens ringing the site.

Labastide d'Armagnac
This village on the western edge of the region hangs its hat on the Armagnac trade and advertises a museum to the stuff.  There wasn't much evidence of that when we rolled through the sleepy village.  What's far more impressive for culture seekers is the legend that this is the source for Paris' Place des Vosges, inspiring a young Henry IV when he visited.  Labastide's heart is a hugely picturesque square, with arcades for promenading and gracious, half-timbered houses above.  It is indeed reminiscent of that most gracious of civic spaces in the capital, though far more humble.  It won't take you long to wander around, but it's worth stopping here for lunch.  Dine at one of the restaurants in the square and drink in the stunning architecture.  Unlike the Place des Voges, this is well off the beaten tourist track; we saw fewer people in our visit than you would find in a single cafe off the Parisian descendant.

Chateau de Gramont
I wouldn't go much out of the way for this, but if you're in the immediate area it's worth a look in.  Its differentiator, at least when we were there, is the private tour.  You're so far off the beaten track that the property manager answers the doorbell and shows you around herself, which gives you a marvellous feeling of exclusivity.  The original Medieval castle had a Renaissance wing built on; both were derelict by the '60s.  The manager will explain how a French couple bought the place and restored it, eventually giving it to the nation.  The owner's cat is still here and is likely to follow you around.  The restoration includes furniture and tapestries appropriate to the building.  Not original, of course, but gives you a good idea of what the place might have been like.

The disappointments
We didn't go to Gascony for cultural masterpieces; our expectations were modest.  Even so, there were a few outings that were real disappointments.  Here's what fell furthest short of the promise of guidebooks and brochures.

From my advanced research, I thought Laressingle would be one of the highlights of the trip.  It's trumpeted as a "pocket-sized Carcassonne, a perfect fortified village".  Yes. it's a fortified collection of buildings, providing a few photo opps from the outside.  Inside, however, there are a few cheesy shops, a cafe, a restored, mostly-featureless chapel and the ruined hulk of a small castle.  The museum of siege engines outside, again heavily advertised, is a ramshackle, weed-strewn enclosure with a few bad exhibits and dressing up opportunities.  The whole place isn't worth more than a 5-minute drive by.

Henry IV is France's great Renaissance king, progenitor of such masterpieces as Paris' Place des Vosges and the Pont Neuf.  So hearing that there was a Henry IV chateau in Nerac was very exciting.  Sadly, no guidebook I saw mentions that today's chateau is one truncated side of what was once a quadrangle, and there's almost nothing in it.  The managers make a noble attempt to bring things to life with a series of displays in the empty rooms, but they're just big posters and you can learn as much about Henry IV from Wikipedia.  As with so much of what we saw this trip, the outside was better than the interior, and the way to enjoy it best is to dine at an outdoor cafe beneath it.  In this case, L'Escadron Volant.

Condom is supposed to be a beautiful town, packed with interesting buildings and loads of charm.  Maybe we hit it at a bad moment.  (Admittedly, there'd been a big festival the weekend before and they were still struggling to clean up the rubbish.)  But we struggled to see the appeal.  An average cathedral surrounded by empty, charmless streets, nothing enticing further exploration.  The most interesting thing we encountered was a larger-than-lifesized statue of the four musketeers, placed here by a Russian film production.  This was the least impressive of any of the Gascon towns we visited.

Of course, the main things that drew us to Gascony were food and drink.  There's plenty of sightseeing specifically dedicated to that.  Next:  Armagnac and foie gras.