LANDES

GENERAL INFORMATION

Landes is a département in southern France and is part of the current région of Aquitaine which is surrounded by the départements of Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Gers, and Pyrénées-Atlantiques, as well as the Atlantic Ocean on the west.

It is well known for the Côte d'Argent beach which is Europes longest, and attracts many surfers to Mimizan and Hossegor each year.

Landes is known for its large pine forests which is the raw material for the timber and resin industries in the region. The forests were planted in the early nineteenth century to prevent erosion of the region's sandy soil by the sea.

HISTORY

Historically, Landes was part of Gascony. It was one of the original 83 département created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the provinces of Guyenne and Gascony.

THINGS TO DO AND SEE

The departement of Landes, is the second largest in all France. Aquitaine enjoys a balmy climate, mild in winter and temperate in summer. Traditionally Landes has always conjured up an image of expanses of beach, the fine sand edged with dunes beyond which the forest stretches as far as the eye can see, but the departement in fact boasts four major tourist areas: the Coast, the Forest, Sud-Adour and Dax, and finally Armagnac and Mont-de-Marsan.

The coast stretches from the Adour estuary all the way to that of the Gironde, a distance of more than 220 kilometres. There are 16 supervised beaches that are maintained in good order all year round.

The forest covering the Landes de Gascogne is entirely man-made, having been planted in the nineteenth century as a way of cleaning up the vast stretches of sand and swampland that used to occupy a rough triangle almost 11 000 km2 in area.

The Gascony Moors Regional Nature Park was established in 1970 with the aim of promoting economic development and the tourist industry whilst at the same time preserving the area’s fragile ecological balance and quality of life.

The most important tourist site in this region is the Ecomusée de la Grande Lande at Marquèze, where one of the traditional forest farmhouses, known as an " airial ", has been preserved and restored just as it might have been at the beginning of the last century.

The Adour divides Landes into two parts which are geographically very different: plateau and forest to the north, and to the south a landscape of rolling hills, home to oak, maize and vineyards.

The Barthes de l’Adour or floodplains of the Adour river are planted with oak forests that contrast with the pine-trees so evident elsewhere, while the Barthes de Saubusse, floodplains of the Saubusse, are home to the last fifty specimens of the Barthes Pony which live there in a semi-wild state. At St Martin-de-Seignanx, the department’s Hunting Association has restored 95 hectares of the Barthes floodplains to their original condition, creating a preserve for birdlife.

The caves at Brassempouy witnessed the discovery of the oldest known sculpture to date, the Dame à la Capuche (Hooded Woman). There are some noteworthy ruins from the Gallo-Roman period, particularly at Dax, while Aire-sur-l’Adour bears witness to the days of Saint Quitterie and the Visigoth kings. Remains during from the Middle Ages as well as more recent times can be seen in most villages, in particular the Romanesque churches of Ste Quitterie, St-Sever, Montfort, Sorde l’Abbaye, Brassempouy, Arthous, Pimbo, Cagnotte, Amou and Audignon, not to mention the wonderful crypt of St Girons at Hagetmau.

The Sud-Adour region is rich in unspoiled countryside, with plenty of farmhouse accommodation and small traditional hotels.  France’s foremost spa town, Dax, was known even before the Roman conquest for the curative properties of its hot springs. Together with Dax, the spas of Préchacq, St-Paul-Les-Dax, Saubusse, Tercis and Eugénie-les-Bains make up the foremost group of spa towns in all of France.

Armagnac is the smallest district in Landes, but between Villeneuve-de-Marsan and Gabarret the landscape is more varied than in any of the three regions described above, with many different kinds of countryside and architecture too. Little by little the pine forest disappears, blending gradually with oak and chesnut. Vineyards take pride of place, however, for this region is home to the wine from which Armagnac is distilled.