www.gasconyhomes.com  Who are we ?

www.gasconyhomes.com  is the website of "Lacassagne Immobilier", a long established and respected real estate agency, operating in the Gascony region for more than 20 years.

We provide a personal service covering every aspect of residential property purchase.

We are ourselves based in the heart of Gascony at Agen and would be happy to receive your enquiry. You can telephone us on +33 (0)5 53 68 24 45 or simply fill in the contact us form at www.gasconyhomes.com

Get To Know The Gascony Region

Almost the whole of South west France, south of the Garonne, north of the Pyrenean peaks and west to the Atlantic was know for centuries as Gascony. In 1972 it was divided into two by the French government for its own bureaucratic convenience with no historical identity. Toulouse the new capital of the Midi Pyrenees more comfortably belongs to the Languedoc and Bordeaux is now considered as the capital of the new Aquitaine. The inhabitants, however still call themselves Gascons and would have it no other way.

The landscape is more varied than anywhere else in France, gentle undulating hills soften into a plateau that is interrupted by a range of magnificent mountains. At the south-western corner The Pyrenees tumble into the sea and to the north the largest pine forest in Europe the Landes, carpets the terrain all the way to the mouth of the Gironde, the estuary the Garonne flows into. The land is fertile and lends the region to agriculture. In summer the fields are bursting with sunflowers and corn and the vines ripen in the everlasting heat. Every now and then sits a sleepy bastide town, which burst with energy on market days and at times of annual festivals. Coupled with all the historical evidence that Gascony offers, there is no excuse to be bored, just relaxed.

The springs are partly damp and partly like an English summer. In June things really hot up and seem to last forever drifting slowly into a crisp autumn. Occasionally strong Atlantic winds force activities indoors and clear the last of the leaves from the trees ready for a short winter that can be anything from mild or wet to freezing with frost and temperatures as low as minus ten, sometimes with snow. But it never really settles. The Pyrenees in contrast have snow that sits from December to May and now boasts some excellent ski resorts all over the mountain range.

Winters are sleepy but summers are crazy with the population doubling and every town sporting a festival with meals in the street and music in the air. Fuelled with Spanish influences Gascon festivals are exciting experiences and everyone is made welcome and encouraged to participate. Christmas can be a pretty time with each town trying to outdo its neighbour with sparkling luminous displays.

With low cost flights and new airline routes opening up Gascony is being pulled screaming into the twenty first century, but this is only really evident in the bigger towns and cities.

Get To Know The People From Gascony

The Gascons pride themselves on their gentle lifestyles and their family priorities. Children play safely in the streets and old people sit on benches in the shade and comment on the latest current event taking place in the world outside. There is a fierce stubborn streak running through the blood of every Gascon, which is highly infectious to the cosmopolitan inhabitants they share their daily lives with. Change is only necessary when it is necessary and to date in Gascony there has been nothing introduced as yet that is better then the way it is. The towns bustle and the countryside relaxes. Gascony remains as diverse as its landscape, as warm as its summers and as generous as its fields. No wonder the French have tried to keep it a secret from the rest of the world.

Food and drink

It has the landscape of Tuscany, the weather of Spain and the food and wine of Kings, Gascony has for years been Frances best kept secret. Mostly ignored by Parisian bureaucracy through lack of interest, it has managed to escape the over development that the rest of France has incurred despite boasting Europe's first holiday playground around its Atlantic borders with Spain in the nineteenth century. Because it has mostly been left to its own evolution Gascony can boast a wealth of culture, traditions and pleasantly preserved villages like no where else in France.

Food:
Gascony food is not really found on the gastronomic trail of haute cuisine of which France prides itself. Nouvelle cuisine would be considered as a joke and quite rightly so when the region can boast the healthiest Frenchmen in the country who have the least heart problems and the longest lives. The food of Gascony is fresh, natural and extremely tasty and the most satisfying and healthiest cuisine to be found in the whole of the country. If you love a really wholesome gastronomic experience then Gascony is the place to be.

Wine:
Everything from the land is lovingly washed down with wine, a vin de table locally grown and made. Both the red and the white are fruity and best drunk young and even in abundance rarely give a hang over, as long as they are not mixed. Because the wine growing regions of Bordeaux fringe on the borders of Gascony there are no end to the superb wines to experience.