Discovering

MOST BEAUTIFUL VILLAGES IN FRANCE

Discover three of the “Most Beautiful Villages in France”

Located in the Ténarèze region and less than 30 minutes from Barbotan-les-Thermes, these three villages, ranked among the most beautiful in France, await you for a stroll through time.

Montréal du Gers

A medieval bastide

Montréal du Gers, one of Gascony’s 1st bastide towns, has retained the character of those typical new towns of the Middle Ages.

The town’s name, Montréal (or “Montroyal”), recalls the royal origins of this bastide founded in 1255 by Alphonse de Poitiers.

Built right into the rock on a promontory overlooking the small Auzoue valley, it played a strategic role as a lock between the French and English domains during the Hundred Years’ War.

Montréal-du-Gers retains a rich heritage from its past: fortified enclosure, ogival town gate, half-timbered houses, square surrounded by solid stone arcades, narrow passageways serving the various islets of the bastide.

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Fourcès

An atypical circular village

Classed as one of the “Most Beautiful Villages in France”, Fourcès, an atypical village in the Gers, is sure to delight all your senses!

A picturesque former castelnau, this village immediately seduces with its beauty and serenity.

Wrapped in a green line by the Auzoue, a lovely fish-filled river, Fourcès opens up like a lively history book. The round square occupies the site of the motte castrale where the primitive castle was built, destroyed in the 15th century.

Gather under the shade of the plane trees to celebrate, play pétanque, attend concerts, bargain-hunt at the brocantes or take in the scents of the flower market (last weekend in April).

Around the square, medieval houses with oak jambs make the rounds, neighboring more recent 17th and 18th century homes.

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Larressingle

La Petite Carcassonne

Classed as one of France’s “Most Beautiful Villages” and one of Occitanie’s “Grands Sites” under the heading “Armagnac Abbaye et Cités”, this smallest fortified village in France boasts a fine medieval architectural ensemble comprising a château, former home of the abbots and then bishops of Condom, a Romanesque church, medieval houses, protected by ramparts, towers, moats and drawbridge.

According to legend, this 13th-century village takes its name from Gallo-Roman times: having resisted a siege by the Roman army, Crassus, Caesar’s lieutenant, is said to have shouted to his soldiers “Retro singul i”: back one by one to retreat.

Larressingle enters history at the beginning of the 11th century when the abbots then the bishops of Condom became the Lords of the place. Abandoned then restored by the Duke of Treviso in the 20th century, Larressingle is today a must-see site in the Gers.