ROUTE DES BASTIDES ET CASTELNAUX

AUCH Former capital of Gascony and Great Sites of Midi-Pyrenees - St. Mary's Cathedral (XV - XVII) declared World Heritage Site by Unesco and its prestigious furniture: stalls, stained glass windows, entombment, pipe organ - Monumental staircase (370 steps) with the statue of d'Artagnan - Tour d'Armagnac (XIV) - historic district with its pousterles (narrow streets) and listed houses - Former Archbishop of the eighteenth century today prefecture - town Hall of eighteenth and Musee des Jacobins. BARRAN Bastide - Step on the way to Santiago de Compostela - Remains of the ancient walls and moats and a beautiful fortified gate - helical steeple rare kind. ISLE-DE-NOE Village located at the confluence of two Baïses (large and small) which owes its name to the fact that the two rivers, joining the grip in a kind of island. Castle of the eighth century. MONTESQUIOU Castelnau - Tower Door of the thirteenth century - Church of St. Martin and its massive bell tower of the thirteenth completely redesigned from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, with beautiful Gothic choir vault. BASSOUES Bastide of the thirteenth century based on an ancient druidic site. Square Place - Wells - timbered houses of the sixteenth century - Halle dated sixteenth century - Donjon built in 1369, a masterpiece of military art of the late Middle Ages. BEAUMARCHES Royal Bastide founded in 1290. Beautiful church of the fourteenth century, one of the few churches in the Gers to have retained its original stone vault and an extraordinary bell tower. City PLAISANCE with two bastides. Tower square angle - Remains of walls. Neo-Gothic church built in the nineteenth century organ of 43 games - Mansions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. MARCIAC classified Grand Site Midi Pyrénées . Royal Bastide, founded at the end of the thirteenth century - Large Square (the largest in Midi-Pyrenees) arcaded - fourteenth Church. Bastide famous for its jazz festival (first half of August). TO RETURN TO AUCH First suggestion: 53 km Just outside Marciac direction Plaisance D943 turn right to reach Bassoues via Saint Christaud (step). Second suggestion: 48 km Take the direction D3 to Tillac Mirande (step) then the D16 to join the N21. Mirande (step) - N21 towards Auch.