NATURE
The Gers in motion: on foot, by bike, on the water… or in the air
On foot, by bike, on the water or in the air: different ways to discover the Gers landscape from a new perspective.
Photo : Rusty Watson / Unsplash
Hills, valleys, paths, rivers and wide-open horizons offer plenty of ways to explore the Gers. Some routes cross the département for dozens of kilometres; others simply give you a different perspective for a few hours.
On foot, along the long-distance trails
The GR65 is naturally the route we know best from Les Chambres d’Athéla: it passes through Castet-Arrouy before continuing towards Lectoure.
But other walking routes cross the département, linking villages, landscapes and heritage sites. These offer a different kind of walking from the shorter walks and loops through the Lomagne that we have brought together in our article “Walks and nature in the Lomagne.”
By bike
The rolling terrain of the Gers offers plenty of variety for road cycling, mountain biking or e-biking. The département has 16 cycle touring routes, eight of them waymarked, as well as several longer routes.
The Baïse Valley Cycle Route — V82 — crosses the Gers from north to south through vineyards, fields, villages and heritage sites. The Armagnac Greenway, built along a former railway line, runs for 33 kilometres between Condom and Eauze, with hardly any climbing.
Around Castet-Arrouy, the roads of the Lomagne offer another option, with routes through villages and farmland.
On the water
A few kilometres from Saint-Clar, the Es Calavès leisure centre lies around a five-hectare hillside lake. In summer, there is supervised swimming, a beach, picnic areas and activities on the water.
The Baïse offers a completely different setting. This navigable river crosses part of the Gers and provides another way to discover the valley, particularly by boat or canoe.
In the air
A hot-air balloon gives you a remarkable perspective on the Gascon landscape. From above, valleys, farmland, woods, villages and ridgelines come together to reveal the shape of the Gers in an entirely different way.
Montgolfières de Gascogne offers flights over the region, generally around sunrise or as sunset approaches, weather permitting.
