The Gers
Attractions
The finder
Adds drive times from the house, near Saint-Clar.
I want something to eat
Eating, from the doorstep to the long way out
The first few are a whim; the last are an occasion and need booking well ahead. Watch the seasons here especially — two of the best things run only in winter, and one only in August.
- Saint-Clar · 10 minSaint Clar market Our pickProducers under the 13th-century timber market hall. Saint Clar is the centre of Ail Blanc de Lomagne, the IGP white garlic, so the garlic is not a souvenir here — it is the local industry.Thursday and Saturday mornings
- Saint-Clar · 10 minLes soirées gourmandes (festival) Our pickProducers set up under the halle and you eat off their plates wherever you can find a seat, with music. The garlic festival falls on the first Thursday; the competition on the third, judged on sacks, bundles and braids before the public is let in, and ending in a communal meal for around 1,300 people. Garlic has been grown here since 1265.Thursday evenings in August
- Fleurance · 16 minMarché au grasHeld in the Halle au Gras, and a working trade market rather than a tourist one: whole ducks and geese and raw foie gras sold by the farms that raised them. Completely pointless in summer — the halle is empty and the market above ground is an ordinary town market.Tuesdays, late October to March
- Lectoure · 20 minLe Bastard (restaurant)An 18th-century hôtel particulier by the cathedral with a large terrace over the rooftops and the valley. The cooking is careful and local rather than exciting. Go for the terrace and the view and treat the food as a bonus.Closed Mondays
- Samatan · about an hourMarché au grasTwo markets back to back — carcasses first, then foie gras — and the largest of its kind in the Gers. Only worth the hour if you actually intend to buy and cook. Fleurance does the same job sixteen minutes away.Mondays, late October to March
- Avezan · 10 minLa Table de Nazère (restaurant) Our pickThe best food within ten minutes of the house, and it is not close. The kitchen cooks out of a permaculture garden watered from springs and rainwater cisterns, which is why Michelin gave it a Green Star rather than a conventional one. Book — the dining room is in a restored stone hamlet and it fills.Closed some weeks in Feb and March
- Fleurance · 16 minLa Tour du Fleurance (restaurant)The nearest proper sit-down dinner to the house. Honest regional cooking — duck confit, sweetbreads flambéed in Armagnac — rather than anything you would drive for. It seats seventy-six inside and about a hundred and fifty with the terrace, so it absorbs a party of twelve at short notice. The weekend closure catches people out.Dinner only, closed weekends
- Terraube · 25 minVente et Cueillette à Thibaut (producer)Third-generation melon growers, part of the association that defends the Melon de Lectoure name. Pick your own, or buy at the gate along with tomatoes, courgettes and squash. They deliver within twenty kilometres, which is worth knowing with a full house.Melons in summer
- Lectoure · 20 minRacinette (restaurant)The owners are Canadian and Belgian, so ordering in English is not a performance — which makes this the easiest good dinner in the area rather than the best one. Closed at the start of the week.
- Lectoure · 20 minLes Nuits du Lundi (festival)The main street closes to traffic and fills with brocanteurs, producers, food trucks and children's activities until midnight, with the town's own shops staying open alongside. Run by the local traders rather than staged for visitors.Monday evenings, mid-July to August
- Lectoure · 20 minLe Cochon Bleu (restaurant)A bookshop carrying over five thousand titles that also serves one plat du jour at lunch. Good for a solo hour with a book, much less good for twelve people.Lunch only, closed Sun and Mon
- Pujaudran · about an hourLe Puits Saint Jacques (restaurant)One of only two Michelin-starred restaurants in the whole Gers. A whole afternoon, not a dinner.
- Puylausic · about an hour and a quarterLa Maison Despouès (restaurant)The other one. Further again, and worth it only if a starred lunch is the point of the day.
I want something for the children
The two best things are three minutes away
A supervised swimming lake and a wallaby park sit on the same lane as the house, both close enough that a wet afternoon costs nothing to abandon. After that it is ordered by distance, ending with the two that exist for the third consecutive day of rain.
- Saint-Clar · 3 minLe Vallon des Kangourous (activity) Our pickFour hectares walked on foot among free-roaming wallabies, emus, llamas and alpacas, with a fossil sandpit at the end. Afternoons, and it moves to mornings in a heatwave. Card only.Spring through September
- Mauroux · 12 minLa Ferme des Étoiles (activity)A 620mm telescope, a seven-metre planetarium and what is billed as the largest pair of binoculars in the world, twelve minutes away. They run dinner-and-observation evenings as well as residential courses, so you can go for one night rather than book a week. This is the organisation behind the Fleurance festival, and the sky out here is properly dark. Ring ahead — the evening programme is not published far in advance.All year, sky permitting
- Gramont · 15 minChâteau de GramontA small state-run château, medieval at the core, with a Renaissance range added onto it, a good Renaissance staircase and terraced gardens. Free for under-18s, which with a houseful is most of the bill gone. Pushchairs get into the park but not the rooms, so carry small children rather than push them. No dogs.All year, closed Mondays
- Beaumont-de-Lomagne · 30 minMusée FermatAn interactive maths museum in the house where Pierre de Fermat was born, refurbished in 2025, with a panorama from the top of the tower. Better than it sounds, and indoors. But it is one hour rather than three, and children under about seven will get the tower and nothing else.All year
- Roquefort · 50 minWalygator Sud-Ouest, near Agen (activity)The full theme-park day, plus an adjoining water park with eighteen slides. It is not a Gers day out and nobody comes here for it. On a wet week it is the thing that saves you.Park spring to autumn; water summer
- Saint-Clar · 3 minBase de Loisirs Es Calaves (swimming) Our pickA lake with a sand beach, two big slides, pedalos and a large inflatable obstacle course, plus kayak and sailing hire. There is a second, larger lake alongside whose swimming access varies year to year.Lifeguarded in summer
- Fleurance · 16 minPiscine municipaleAn open-air 25m pool with a separate toddler pool and a shallow play area with massage jets. Municipal and unglamorous, and the nearest reliable swim that is neither a lake nor a campsite. Schools have priority on some weekdays at each end of the season.Mid-June to mid-September
- Fleurance · 16 minFestival d'AstronomieBigger than it sounds, with a dedicated programme for children and teenagers. If your week falls across it, it is worth planning around.First week of August
- Sarrant · 30 minL'Azinet (activity)A working donkey farm with five circuits from three and a half to fourteen kilometres — donkeys either saddled for small children or panniered to carry the picnic — plus four animal-powered mills making flour. Sarrant has a good bookshop-café to finish in. Everything is by appointment; there is no dropping in.All year, by appointment only
- Beaumont-de-Lomagne · 30 minBase de Loisirs Le Lomagnol (swimming) Our pickA thirty-hectare lake with three pools, waterslides, an inflatable aquapark, canoe and paddle hire, minigolf and beach volleyball. Entry to the grounds is free and only the water is charged, so it works as a whole day for twelve without committing to anything.Water July and August only
- Pavie · 50 minLe Vert en l'Air (activity)Five hectares of oak woodland with treetop courses from age three — parents walk alongside the smallest at ground level — plus a tablet-guided treasure hunt, electric off-road scooters and paintball. The age spread is the point: one of the few places a six-year-old and a fifteen-year-old are both occupied.Daily in summer; weekends and by booking otherwise
- Pont-du-Casse · 55 minHappy Forest (activity)Seven hectares of century-old oak with fifteen treetop courses, an animal park, pony rides, minigolf and an air-conditioned escape room. The mature woodland is the real argument for it over the alternatives — it is the one adventure park round here that is bearable in an August heatwave.Animal park all year; courses seasonal
I want a long walk
Waymarked loops, six to ten kilometres
Saint Clar itself offers a short stroll or half a day and little between. The twenty minutes around it are better served: these are all waymarked loops of six to ten kilometres. Three start from the same car park in Fleurance, which makes one destination and three lengths.
- Saint-Clar · From the villageChemin de la Bénazide Our pickFive and a half kilometres from the square. The walk on the doorstep, and the one to do on the first morning.
- Lagarde · 18 minQuand on marchait sur les cheminsEight and a half kilometres with barely eighty metres of climb, waymarked, and shortenable if the group fades. Passes the Château d'Argentens and its arboretum and the church at Sainte-Radegonde. The closest walk in this bracket to the house, and among the flattest.All year
- Lectoure · 20 minLe versant nord de Lectoure (walk) Our pickNine kilometres, about three hours, over farm track, woodland including a small bamboo grove, and quiet lanes. The best-reviewed walk in range by some distance. Two honest caveats from people who have done it: the waymarking has gaps in two places, and there are ticks in the long grass in spring.All year; muddy in winter
- Montgaillard · 25 minLe circuit des PotiersJust under ten kilometres in about three and a half hours, through chestnut and oak woods and past two lakes, and reported as well marked throughout. Be warned: it is roughly half tarmac and half track, there is nowhere to sit anywhere on it, and it turns to mud after rain.Avoid after heavy rain
- Sarrant · 30 min, park under the plane treesLe sentier des Pigeonniers Our pickSeven and a half kilometres, around two hours, rated very easy, with four dovecotes to find along the way and a board at each. The best walk here for children specifically, because counting pigeonniers gives them a job. The panoramic stretch has no shade at all, and there is a bookshop-café at the end.All year; start early in August
- Mauvezin · 30 minRandonnée du TumulusJust under nine kilometres, rated very easy, past an old mill and a disused railway. About a third is on tarmac. The reason to pick this one in August is shade — ash woodland and a stretch along the river, which is more cover than almost anything else in the Lomagne. Carry the written description; reports on the waymarking disagree.One of the few that works in high summer
- Cologne · 37 minChemin de SiracSix kilometres in about an hour, rated very easy and running through woodland nearly all the way. The most shaded route in range, and the one to pick on a hot afternoon. Two longer loops start from the same market hall if you want the distance.The hot-weather option
- La Romieu · 38 minLe sentier karstiqueEight kilometres with over two hundred metres of climb, which is the steepest thing on this list — the Gers does not usually do steep. An interpretive trail on underground water, caves and cliffs, so there is something to read at intervals. Combines with the collegiate church and the cats for a full morning. Allow nearer three hours than the distance suggests.All year
- Lectoure · 30 min to the startGR65, Lectoure to La RomieuAbout nineteen kilometres and five hours along the Santiago pilgrim route, if you want the half-day after all. The Lectoure–Condom stretch is one of only seven trail sections in France inscribed by UNESCO — the path itself is the listed thing, not just the churches on it.
- Not tied to one place · —Topoguides and GPXThe FFRandonnée guide to the Gers covers thirty-eight routes, and the Bastides de Lomagne office gives away route sheets. Download the GPX before you come; signal is patchy out in the fields, and two of the walks above are worth having on a phone.
- Fleurance · 16 min, park at the Moulin du RoyLe Chemin du Pigeonnier Our pickTen kilometres in about two and a half hours, and — this is the number that matters — well under a hundred metres of climb across the whole loop. It is essentially flat, waymarked, and starts on a surfaced path past the lake before turning into open country. The one to choose with mixed ages or an eight-year-old who has never walked ten kilometres. Better shade than any ridge route here.All year
- Tourrenquets · 25 min, park at the churchLe petit tour de Tourrenquets (walk)Six and a half kilometres and almost no climb — the easiest entry point on this list, and walked by a group with children aged six to nine. But it is a lot of tarmac, quiet tarmac though it is, it turns to serious mud in winter, and people keep asking for more signs at the junctions.Genuinely bad after rain
I want to see something old
Bastides, two UNESCO churches, and a very good staircase
The Gers is thick with this and most of it is free and empty. Where a story is local lore rather than documented history, it says so.
- Saint-Clar · 10 minSaint Clar (town)Founded in the 1270s by a joint-lordship contract between the bishop of Lectoure and Edward I of England, in his capacity as Duke of Aquitaine. It has two arcaded squares, which most bastides do not.Year round
- Gramont · 15 minChâteau de GramontA small state-run château, medieval at the core, with a Renaissance range added onto it, a good Renaissance staircase and terraced gardens. Free for under-18s, which with a houseful is most of the bill gone. Pushchairs get into the park but not the rooms, so carry small children rather than push them. No dogs.All year, closed Mondays
- Lachapelle · 19 minLachapelle (church)A fortified village grown around an 11th-century château, with the church built into the castle itself. Inside is a baroque interior fitted in 1776 — the same year this house was built, by a craftsman from Lectoure — and it looks far more like a small opera house than a village church. It is opened by volunteers, so ring ahead or ask us to.Worth checking before you go
- Dunes · 30 minDunes (town)A bastide with a good arcaded square and a medieval tower everyone calls the Templars' tower. Its real name is the Tour de Turas, and the Templar connection is local lore rather than documented history — which does not make it a less pleasant place to have lunch.Year round
- Beaumont-de-Lomagne · 30 minBeaumont-de-Lomagne (town) Our pickPierre de Fermat was born in this house and nobody can say what year: there are baptisms recorded for 1601 and 1605, his epitaph implies 1607, and the parish register has a hole in it exactly where the answer should be. The theorem he scribbled in a margin — that the margin was too narrow to hold his proof — took until 1995 to settle. The 14th-century oak halle he grew up under still holds the Saturday market.Year round; market Saturday mornings
- Auvillar · 30 minAuvillar (town) Our pickWhat made Auvillar rich in the 18th century was goose quills, cut here and shipped down the Garonne as far as Spain. The round market hall on the triangular square stands on twenty Doric columns, and in the raised core at its centre the original stone grain measures are still set into the floor, where the market inspector stood to settle arguments. Half an hour on foot covers it.Year round
- Lectoure · 20 minMusée archéologique Our pickIn 1540 workmen rebuilding the cathedral choir dug up twenty Roman altars recording bulls sacrificed to Cybele, one dated to the exact day: 18 October 176. It is the most important collection of its kind anywhere — Rome itself holds about fifteen. It lives in the vaulted cellar under the town hall and takes half an hour.April to November
- Lavardens · 35 minChâteau de Lavardens Our pickSeventeen rooms and seventeen different floors, each a separate geometric pattern laid in local brick and limestone, no two alike. Rebuilding began in the early 1600s and never finished — plague in 1653 drove two hundred workmen off the hill and the top storey was never built. It was nearly broken up as a stone quarry before being listed in 1961.Open daily
- Sarrant · 35 minSarrant (town)Three hundred people wound in a spiral around the church, entered through a 14th-century tower gate, where the only shop is a bookshop that also does lunch. Since 2014 it has made itself the village of illustration, with painted street signs, artists' studios and a festival each July.Year round; illustration festival in mid-July
- La Romieu · 38 minLa Romieu (town) Our pickOne of the Plus Beaux Villages de France. The collegiate church is UNESCO-listed and holds one of the oldest double-helix staircases in Europe — two intertwined spirals, so two people can climb without meeting. Check the days before you drive out; the church and the gardens close on different ones.Church year round; gardens April to October
- Moissac · 45 minAbbaye Saint-Pierre de Moissac Our pickAn inscription on one of the cloister pillars dates it to the year 1100 and names the abbot who built it — precision almost unheard of for a Romanesque cloister. Seventy-six capitals survive, forty-seven carved with narrative scenes. The church next door is free to walk into even if you skip the ticket. Allow an hour; the carving is the point and rushing it is pointless.Year round
- Auch · 45 minAuch cathedral Our pickEighteen Renaissance windows by Arnaut de Moles, glazed between 1507 and 1513, and the only scheme of that scale to survive complete in France. If you see one church, this or Moissac.Year round
- Auch · 45 minMusée des AmériquesThe second-largest pre-Columbian collection in France, in a town of twenty thousand, because a tailor from Auch went to Chile in 1879, came home with crates, and left the lot to the town when he died. The masterpiece is a Mass of Saint Gregory made in Mexico in 1539 — a picture built entirely out of feathers. It is pottery behind glass, though: a stop bolted onto a day in Auch rather than a destination for young children.Closed for the winter
- Valence-sur-Baïse · 45 minAbbaye de Flaran Our pickFounded in 1151 and the best-preserved Cistercian house in the southwest, which would be reason enough. But the monks' dormitory now hangs a private collection running from Rubens to Picasso by way of Monet, Cézanne and Rodin. It is the most-visited site in the Gers, which here still means you will mostly have the cloister to yourself.Year round, bar two weeks in January
- Larressingle · 50 minLarressingle (town)Two hundred-odd people live inside a complete 13th-century circuit of walls, moat and drawbridge — built not by a warlord but by the abbots of Condom as their own fortified residence, which is why the keep sits where a church normally would. Everyone calls it the smallest fortified village in France; the official line is one of the smallest, and the difference is the honest one. Fifteen minutes to walk, and more craft shops than houses.Year round
- Montréal-du-Gers · about an hourVilla gallo-romaine de Séviac (museum)A fourth-century Gallo-Roman country house with some six hundred square metres of floor mosaic lying exactly where it was laid, under a shelter built over it in 2018, plus its own bath suite and underfloor heating. The tourist office calls it the largest such survival in France; take that with salt, but the scale is not in doubt. It is one third of Elusa Capitale Antique, a three-site Gallo-Roman ensemble — the town house and the archaeological museum are both at Éauze. Over an hour each way, so make a day of it with Condom.Daily in season
- Lectoure · 20 minL'Été photographique (festival)A contemporary photography festival that has run every summer since 1990, and its trick is to hang the work in Lectoure's own buildings rather than a gallery: the grain hall, an old school, the cinema. The walk between the venues is half the pleasure.July to late September
- L'Isle-Jourdain · —Musée d'Art CampanaireA museum given over entirely to bells — the Musée européen d'art campanaire, around a thousand objects by the mairie's count — with the Carillon de la Bastille, a listed historic monument in its own right, as the centrepiece. A single-subject museum, and unapologetic about it.
- Simorre · —Abbatiale Notre-Dame (church)The abbey church at Simorre is a fortified church — 'église fortifiée' is the state notice's own opening word on it, and the fortification is the reason to detour. The same notice records it as probably built where a Romanesque building stood, still keeping the relics of Saint Cérase, and it is a listed historic monument.Year round
- Lombez · —Cathédrale Sainte-MarieA cathedral in a village: Sainte-Marie at Lombez is a Gothic building made of brick, forty-seven metres from end to end, under an octagonal bell-tower. The state inventory still calls it 'la cathédrale', and so do we.Year round
- Mirande · —Mirande (town)A bastide of the Astarac still on its original grid — 'plan en damiers', the checkerboard — founded at the end of the 13th century by the Count of Astarac and the abbot of Berdoues; La Dépêche dates it to 1283. The thing to see is the 15th-century Gothic church, whose porch steps across the street on flying buttresses so that the bell-tower rides above the traffic — an arrangement the paper calls unique in France.Year round
- Mirande · —Musée des Beaux-ArtsFounded in 1832 on the collection of Joseph Delort, a son of the town, and free to visit — the mairie's own words. Netherlands Renaissance painting alongside the French and Italian schools; La Dépêche counts the span from the 15th century to the 19th, heavy on portrait busts, nativities and grandees.
- Lupiac · —Musée d'ArtagnanCharles de Batz de Castelmore — the d'Artagnan Dumas borrowed and made immortal — was born at the château of his ancestors at Castelmore in Lupiac, and the village museum takes him as its subject. As for the year of his birth, the mairie and the tourist board give different ones, so we give none.
- Éauze · —Domus de Cieutat (museum)The town half of the Séviac ticket. Elusa Capitale Antique runs three Gallo-Roman sites as one ensemble — the Villa de Séviac in the country, the archaeological museum at Éauze, and this: a town house of 2,700 square metres with reception rooms, a small bath suite and a sophisticated heating and drainage system, very likely the property of local notables, says the mairie. The interpretation centre at its gate is the recommended starting point for all three.Daily in season
- Bassoues · —Donjon de Bassoues (château)The keep at Bassoues — 'a fine specimen of well-preserved military architecture', in the state notice's words — was part of a château built for two archbishops of Auch. It opens April to early November.April to early November
- Tillac · —Tillac (town)A 'village féodal', in the mairie's own words: one central street of timber-framed houses leaning out over deep arcades, closed at each end by a square fortified tower. That street is the whole village, and the reason to stop.Year round
- Marciac · —Marciac (town)A Gascon bastide built around one large central square, with two landmark bell-towers over it. The jazz is year-round here: the Territoires du Jazz museum tells the history of the music in twelve themed rooms — unique in Europe, the regional tourist board says — and the Astrada hall keeps a programme running through every season. Wednesday morning is the market, on the square; the lake, laid out in the early 1960s, is the walk.Year round; market Wednesday mornings
- Termes-d'Armagnac · —Tour de Termes-d'Armagnac (château)What remains of a mid-13th-century Gascon castle is its tower: thirty-six metres of it, with a platform at the top and the Pyrenees across the southern horizon. The tourist office attaches Thibault, a lord of Armagnac, to the place as 'a loyal companion of Joan of Arc' — their association, passed on as such — and calls this the only medieval site open all year. It closes on Tuesdays.All year, closed Tuesdays
I want to drink something local
Armagnac, and where the differences lie
Armagnac is the reason to be here, but it is not the only thing made locally — there is Floc de Gascogne, sparkling wine by the traditional method, and now a brewery. Several need booking, and the ones that do tend to be the ones worth the trouble.
- Cassaigne · 50 minChâteau de Cassaigne (producer)The residence of the bishops of Condom from the 13th century, with a 16th-century kitchen vaulted like a baker's oven and an ageing cellar in the old armoury behind walls two metres thick. Wander it yourself, or book the guided tour, which needs a minimum group.
- Saint-Jean-Poutge · about an hourDomaine de Herrebouc (producer)Eighteen hectares above the Baïse, organic since 2010 and biodynamic since 2020. Tastings run to eight or ten wines and are capped at eight people, so book well ahead — and do not turn up with twelve.
- Mauvezin · 25 minBrasserie Callipyge (producer)Opened in June 2026 by a man who came out of wine — his family's Armagnac estate, then fifteen years selling it around the world — and is deliberately brewing hop-forward beer unlike anything else in the Gers. He cans rather than bottles, because hops degrade in light. Very new, so ring before driving out.
- Réjaumont · 30 minDomaine d'Embidoure (producer) Our pickThe closest serious producer to the house. Thirty-six hectares run by three sisters, third generation, in the Haut-Armagnac appellation that accounts for only about five per cent of all Armagnac. Tasting is free and needs no appointment on weekdays, and there is a shop in Fleurance if you cannot face the lane.
- Lectoure · 20 minChâteau Arton (producer)Organic and biodynamic, does a visit-with-lunch, and will privatise the estate for a group. The one that works most easily in English, and the best fit if you want the afternoon organised for you.
- Lectoure · 20 minDomaine de Mirail (producer)Family-run and more traditional. Go for the Armagnac rather than the experience.
- Condom · 45 minChâteau le Courréjot (producer)The best free option, and unfussy about it. Good if you want a tasting without committing to a whole afternoon.
- Condom · 45 minMaison Aurian (producer)Longer established and more polished. Pair it with Condom itself rather than driving out for the chai alone.
- Saint-Puy · 45 minChâteau Monluc (producer)Home of the Pousse Rapière, an Armagnac-and-orange liqueur invented here in 1963 to a recipe kept secret ever since, drunk one part to seven with their sparkling wine — which they have made by the traditional method since 1953, unusual this far from Champagne. Cellar tours are free but need booking.
- Vic-Fezensac · about an hourMaison Gelas (producer) Our pickA Bas-Armagnac house founded in 1865, still running tours of its century-old chais that take in the still room and the work of the distiller, cellar master and cooper. The shop alongside carries over eight hundred references, easily the deepest selection within an hour. Book; it is not a walk-in.Cellar visits on weekdays
- Larroque-sur-l'Osse · about an hourDomaine Chiroulet (producer)Farmed by the same family since 1893, on some of the highest ground in Gascony, facing south towards the Pyrenees. The cellar door is open most days but proper tours are aimed at groups and need arranging — pitched more at buyers than at passing visitors.
- Montréal-du-Gers · about an hour and a quarterDomaine de Pellehaut (producer)The same family for three centuries, on an 18th-century château estate on the edge of the Bas-Armagnac. There is a still standing in the tasting room, which makes the explanation of distillation a good deal less abstract. A long way, and only worth it if you are already heading west.
- Labastide-d'Armagnac · —Armagnac en Fête (festival)The distillation season opens here: two days on the Place Royale at Labastide-d'Armagnac, with the lighting of the Flamme that then travels from village to chai through the winter. The Flamme de l'Armagnac that follows is a programme rather than a festival — several weeks of evenings in the domaines while the stills run.Two days in late October
I want to be on the water or on a bike
Water, wheels, a balloon and a very small aeroplane
Two things to know before you set off, both of which have ruined somebody's afternoon. Lac de Thoux is no longer open for public swimming — it was privatised and the beach now belongs to the campsite. At Lac des 3 Vallées the pools and slides are for residents only, though the lake itself is public bathing water and unsupervised.
- Saint-Clar · Starts at the bastideEntre Arratz et Auroue, by electric bikeA thirty-kilometre loop from Saint Clar's own market square, entirely on quiet D-roads rather than tracks, taking in L'Isle-Bouzon, Magnas and the perched villages of Tournecoupe and Avezan. It passes back through Saint Clar at the eighteen-kilometre mark, so a fading group can stop there. It is not waymarked — download the route before you set off.All year
- Lectoure · 20 minMicrolight flightsDiscovery flights of thirty to sixty minutes in an enclosed-cabin microlight over the Lomagne, bookable online. One passenger at a time, so a family goes up in relays. Cheaper and far more available than the balloon, and much the same view — but it is a small aircraft with an engine, not a silent drift at dawn.All year; early morning or late afternoon, weather permitting
- Lectoure · 30 min to the launch fieldHot air balloon over the Gers Our pickEvening flights at the good hour, champagne on landing. One caveat worth knowing before anyone gets excited: the local operator flies four adults per basket, so a full house of twelve cannot go up together.May to September
- Castéra-Verduzan · 45 minLac de Castéra-VerduzanOne of only eight lakes in the Gers declared as official bathing water, and currently classified Excellent. Worth knowing precisely because the two nearest lakes are not what they appear.July and August
- Beaucaire · 50 minCanoeing on the BaïseGuided half-day descents with a minibus back. The seven-kilometre run to Valence-sur-Baïse includes a chute down a weir, which is the part children talk about afterwards. The river is dammed every couple of kilometres so the water is flat, and the banks are well shaded — which matters in August. You must be able to swim, and wear shoes that stay on.July and August
- Thoux · 50 minSailing club, Lac de Thoux Saint-CricqThe sailing club is an association open to anyone, and since the privatisation it is the only way a non-camper gets onto this lake at all. Paddleboards, kayaks, pedalos, dinghies, catamarans and windsurfers by the hour, buoyancy aids included, dogs allowed in the boats. There is also a walking loop and a mountain-bike circuit round the lake.Daily hire in July and August
- Saint-Clar · 3 minKayak, paddleboard and sailing, Saint Clar lake Our pickHired on site at the leisure lake. Nothing serious, and that is the point — it fills an afternoon without anybody having to drive.Summer
- Saint-Clar · 10 minRiding (activity)A riding farm five hundred metres below the village, with an indoor school and thirty boxes. Hourly hacks, led pony walks of about three quarters of an hour for small children, half-days, full-day rides with a picnic for three or more, and horse-drawn carriage outings for up to five. Everything is by appointment and there are no walk-ups; ring well ahead in August.All year, by appointment
- Fleurance · 16 minGolf de FleuranceNine holes around an 18th-century half-timbered farmhouse, with a second set of tees on the way back so it plays as a full eighteen. Streams, oak and ash, and rolling ground. It has been ranked among the better nine-hole courses in France, and the club has no website of its own.Playable all year
- Fleurance · 16 minTennis and padelThree outdoor courts and one covered, plus padel and pétanque, in the parkland by the lake. The club sells a summer card for visitors rather than requiring membership, which is the only reason this is worth listing — confirm the terms when you ring.One covered court all year
- Not tied to one place · 16–30 minElectric bike hire, Lectoure and FleuranceThe tourist office hires electric mountain bikes from both towns, with a range comfortably over sixty kilometres, and there are more than three hundred kilometres of waymarked off-road circuits to use them on. Riders must be at least 1m40, which rules out the younger children.All year, book by phone
- Mauvezin · 30 minPiscine municipaleA heated open-air pool with a main basin, a toddler pool and a slide, on grass behind the village hall. It is a village pool and nothing more, but it is heated, it has a slide, and it is rarely busy — which on a hot afternoon is the whole argument.Summer only
- Auch · 45 minGolf d'Auch EmbatsThe full eighteen if Fleurance's nine will not do, laid out through the valleys south-west of Auch with the Pyrenees on the horizon on a clear day. Reduced rates from eight players, which is relevant if half the house plays.All year
- Nogaro · —Circuit Paul Armagnac (activity)Motor racing since October 1960, when the first flag fell on a 1,752-metre track — 'pied au plancher', as the circuit's own history has it. Outside the big meetings you can look in for nothing, by the commune's own line. Nogaro's other arena is literal — arènes built in 1929, typical of the course landaise.Year round
- Cazaubon · —Barbotan-les-Thermes (town)A spa town in the strict sense: Barbotan is the thermal quarter of the commune of Cazaubon, and its thermes run 18-day cures in rheumatology and phlebology, on a season that runs roughly March to November and closes over winter. Not a place for a casual dip, in other words. The non-curiste's reason to come is the Lac de l'Uby, a leisure lake nearby with a name in competitive rowing.Thermes roughly March to November
By place
The same entries, by where they sit
Auvillar
village
Avezan
village
Bassoues
village
Beaucaire
village
Beaumont-de-Lomagne
village
Cassaigne
village
Castéra-Verduzan
village
Cazaubon
village
Cologne
village
Condom
town
Dunes
village
Éauze
town
Fleurance
town
Gramont
village
L'Isle-Jourdain
town
Labastide-d'Armagnac
village
Lachapelle
village
Lagarde
village
Larressingle
village
Larroque-sur-l'Osse
village
Lavardens
village
Lectoure
town
- Château Arton, Lectoure (producer)
- Domaine de Mirail, Lectoure (producer)
- Fête du Melon, Lectoure (festival)
- GR65, Lectoure to La Romieu
- Hot air balloon over the Gers
- L'Été photographique, Lectoure (festival)
- Le Bastard, Lectoure (restaurant)
- Le Cochon Bleu, Lectoure (restaurant)
- Le versant nord de Lectoure (walk)
- Les Nuits du Lundi, Lectoure (festival)
- Microlight flights, Lectoure
- Musée archéologique, Lectoure
- Racinette, Lectoure (restaurant)
Lombez
village
Lupiac
village
Marciac
town
Mauroux
village
Mauvezin
village
Moissac
town
Montgaillard
village
Montréal-du-Gers
village
Pavie
village
Pont-du-Casse
village
Pujaudran
village
Puylausic
village
Réjaumont
village
Roquefort
village
Saint-Clar
village
Saint-Jean-Poutge
village
Saint-Puy
village
Simorre
village
Termes-d'Armagnac
village
Terraube
village
Thoux
village
Tillac
village
Tourrenquets
village
Valence-sur-Baïse
village
Vic-Fezensac
town