Finally, our virtual tour takes us to a region we have visited in reality. We were fortunate and delighted to spend a couple of days in Gascony, le Gascogne, in May 2018. We are eager to return for a longer visit.
Gascony is the home of d’Artagnan, the young hero of Alexandre Dumas’ marvelous adventure novel, The Three Musketeers. The fictional d’Artagnan was inspired by the life of a real 17th century Gascon, and both legends are amply honored throughout the region.
Dumas was one of the best storytellers ever to take pen to page, and The Three Musketeers has endured for its entertaining blend of swashbuckling adventure, romance, villainy, friendship, palace intrigue and history. Read it for all of that, but you won’t learn much about Gascony as the young d’Artagnan leaves his home at the beginning of the tale.
For a very good book about contemporary Gascony, its history and food, check out Duck Season: Eating, Drinking, and Other Misadventures in Gascony, France’s Last Best Place by David McAninch. The Chicago-based travel writer took his family to a village in Gascony for eight months, immersing themselves in local culture. If you don’t want to read the book, I’ll refer you to the travel piece he wrote for the New York Times.
Joanne Harris’ novel, Chocolat, was also set in the region, although the film version starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp used a Burgundy village for its exterior scenes.
Gascony is not well-defined as a region, and although some visitors describe it as the “most French” part of France, that’s probably due more to the relative sparsity of tourism (even Rick Steves hasn’t found its back door) that makes “unspoiled” seem synonymous with “authentic.” Indeed, Gascony is quintessentially French in the sense that the nation of France was formed from many kingdoms and duchies that had their own culture, language and identity. McAninch writes in Duck Season: “As was the case with much of southern France, rural Gascony and its subregions were essentially countries unto themselves almost until the twentieth century: loose assemblages of isolated and self-sustaining peasant communities conducting their daily life almost completely outside the purview of the French national identity.”
The Gascons and the neighboring Basque people share a heritage. In pre-Roman times, the inhabitants spoke a language related to modern Basque, which is an isolate unrelated to any other known living tongue. Wars and invasions of the Early Middle Ages split this part of southwestern France and northern Spain into separate identities of Basque and Gascon. From the Middle Ages until well into the 20th century, the Gascons spoke a dialect of Occitan with many regional variations.
Our first foray into Gascony last May was on the wind-swept Atlantic coast. We rented a car in Bayonne and drove north into Armagnac country, stopping for lunch at a seaside restaurant near Ondres.
By evening we arrived at le Domaine de Paguy, an ancient estate nestled among the vineyards in the Landes area near the village of Betbezer. Our hostess, the charming and generous Myriam, operates her family’s Armagnac distillery as well as the bed and breakfast accommodations. We highly recommend this accommodation if you’re ever in the area. We enjoyed a tasting of the full range of Bas-Armagnac produced by the domaine, comparing the spirit at 5 years of age, 10 years, 20 years, and so on. Armagnac can be difficult to find outside of France as very little of it is exported, but those who love it will seek it out even if they have to special order it or ask their son to bring a bottle up from Chicago.
We were most enchanted by a local fortified wine which we had not even known existed prior to our arrival at Domaine de Paguy. Myriam poured us a taste of Floc de Gascogne, which she said translates from the Occitan language as “flowers of Gascony.” It’s made from a blend of grape juice and Armagnac, and when I tasted it, I knew I would be checking bags on the return flight. We purchased three bottles, and only one remains. I’ve been hoarding it for a special occasion, and that will be our dinner à la gascogne next week.
Our stay at the Domaine de Paguy was peaceful, delicious and beautiful. We had the best meal of our entire trip at the restaurant Le Cadet de Gascogne (a reference to the famous musketeers in the nearby village of St. Justin.
The Gascon countryside has its share of beautiful bastide villages, Roman ruins, vineyards, market towns and a peaceful ambiance. We explored the medieval village of Labastide d’Armagnac and just east of there stopped at Notre Dame des Cyclistes, a 12th century Knights Templar chapel that now houses a small museum honoring bicyclists and Tour de France champions.
Labastide d’Armagnac
Join us next week for a Gascon feast of canard (duck) and accompaniments, and, hopefully, a video episode.
