The Landes in 4 days

Waves at La Gravière, where top surfers compete each autumn, and a saltwater lake that rises and falls with the tide, ringed by 1930s villas.

The only port in the Landes, with a fish auction and an 1858 wooden pier, above the Gouf, an underwater canyon thousands of metres deep.

Around 160 km of mostly flat, traffic-free cycle paths under the pines, linking the lakes of Cazaux, Biscarrosse, Léon and Soustons, with regular beach access.

Nine kilometres of river from Lake Léon to the ocean under alders and swamp cypress, travelled in a flat-bottomed boat steered by a local boatman.

The only lighthouse in the Landes, set in the forest 1.5 km inland, with 183 steps up to a view of dunes, pines and Pyrenees.

A 3,500-hectare freshwater lake with calm beaches, where Latécoère seaplanes took off across the Atlantic in the 1930s, a story told in the museum.

A small train leads to a Landes farming hamlet recreated as it was in 1890, showing how stilt-walking shepherds lived and how resin brought wealth.

A steaming basin where spring water emerges at 64°C in the town square, in France's leading spa town by number of patients.