The Gers and Armagnac

Auch Cathedral of Sainte-Marie

Auch cathedral took nearly two centuries to build, from 1489 to 1680, which explains the marriage of a Flamboyant Gothic body and a classical two-towered façade. The building is 102.86 metres long and 26.64 metres high under the vault, with 21 chapels. Its 18 stained-glass windows, made by Arnaut de Moles between 1507 and 1513, form one of the great Renaissance ensembles of stained glass: they set the Old and New Testaments side by side, with prophets, apostles and sibyls. The choir, conceived as a church within the church, has 113 oak stalls, upper and lower, bearing more than 1,500 carved figures, biblical, mythological or drawn from everyday life. Jean de Joyeuse's great organ dates from 1694. The cathedral has been a World Heritage Site since 1998 as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela. Outside, the monumental staircase links the upper town with the River Gers, with the statue of d'Artagnan halfway down.

Larressingle

Larressingle enters history in the 11th century, when Abbot Hugues de Gascogne ceded these lands and the church of Saint-Sigismond; the abbots and then the bishops of Condom, a diocese created in 1317, became its lords. In the 13th century, as France and England fought over Aquitaine, they ringed the village with a rampart about 270 metres round, reinforced with square towers, and built a castle whose gutted keep still stands. You enter through a fortified gate that once had a drawbridge, now replaced by a fixed bridge. Inside, a handful of houses, the Romanesque church and a few shops huddle against the walls. The village, with 213 inhabitants, holds the Plus Beaux Villages de France label and receives some 133,000 visitors a year. Close by, the Pont d'Artigues over the Baïse is UNESCO-listed as a stage on the Way of St James. In season, an area devoted to medieval siege engines sets up at the foot of the ramparts.

Lectoure

Lectoure is the Romans' Lactora, later capital of the Counts of Armagnac, whose power collapsed in 1473 when Louis XI's troops besieged the town and Jean V of Armagnac was killed there. The town of 3,670 inhabitants sits on an east-west spur, between 68 and 223 metres above sea level, giving it sweeping views over the Gers valley and, on clear days, the Pyrenees from the Promenade du Bastion. The cathedral of Saint-Gervais-et-Saint-Protais, listed in 1912, opens the main street; the Fontaine Diane, a spring of Roman origin beneath three 13th-century arches, hides below the ramparts. The town has ten protected monuments. Marshal Jean Lannes, one of Napoleon's close companions, was born here and the town raised a statue to him. The archaeological museum gathers taurobolic altars, evidence of the cult of Cybele. Lectoure is also a stop on the Via Podiensis and melon country, with thermal baths opened in 2003 on a natural hot spring.

Fourcès

Fourcès began as a castelnau, a village that grew up at the foot of a castle, and later became a bastide; that transition explains its plan, unique in the Gers: the houses are set in a circle around a round, shady square, rather than on the usual bastide grid. The half-timbered façades rest on arcades of wood or stone, and you enter the village through the 13th-century clock tower, a listed historic monument. Below, the Auzoue flows under a stone bridge, near the 15th-century château, now a hotel-restaurant. The church of Saint-Laurent completes the scene. The village now has 260 inhabitants, compared with more than 1,100 in 1831, and farming remains important here. Fourcès holds the Plus Beaux Villages de France label, and its flower market, on the last weekend of April, is one of the highlights of spring in the Gers. Come in the morning, when the light filters through the trees on the square, then carry on to Larressingle and Montréal, two neighbouring villages.

Marciac

Marciac is a royal bastide founded in 1298 through a paréage, a co-lordship agreement between the abbey of La Case-Dieu, the Count of Pardiac and Guichard de Marzé, the king's representative, after whom the village is named; its charter of customs was confirmed in 1300 by Philip the Fair. The central square, 133 by 78 metres, is the largest in the Gers, lined with arcades and covered walkways. The church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption has an 87-metre spire, the tallest in the département. But Marciac is best known for Jazz in Marciac, founded in 1978, which every summer, around early August, brings the big names of jazz together under a marquee, with dozens of free concerts on the square, for more than 200,000 visitors. The rest of the year, the village returns to its 1,200 inhabitants, and L'Astrada, a permanent venue, programmes jazz all year round. A landscaped lake on the edge of the village makes for a pleasant walk. If you're coming for the festival, book very early: accommodation in the area is snapped up.

D'Artagnan museum in Lupiac

Lupiac, a village in deepest Gascony, saw the birth, between 1611 and 1615 at the Château de Castelmore, of Charles de Batz de Castelmore, the fourth son in a family of seven children, who would take the name d'Artagnan. Leaving for Paris around 1630, he became captain-lieutenant of the first company of King Louis XIV's Musketeers and died at the siege of Maastricht in 1673. Alexandre Dumas made him the hero of The Three Musketeers, which has eclipsed the real man. The d'Artagnan museum occupies the chapel of Saint-Jacques, a protected historic monument that also serves as the tourist office; from its terrace the view stretches over the countryside and the Pyrenees. The sound-and-image trail mixes documents, mannequins and film posters, and ends with a film. On the square, a 3.50-metre bronze equestrian statue awaits the selfies. Every summer, on the second weekend of August, the villagers stage a d'Artagnan festival that revives a 17th-century fair with more than 500 volunteers in costume.