The Area

The 14^th C bastide village of L’Isle-en-Dodon is a shady 25-minute stroll down quiet country lanes from Les Perdigots. With its covered market place, historic church square, and welcoming restaurants, cafes and bars, it is a pleasant place to while away a lunchtime, or take an evening stroll for an apres diner digestif!  The village also has 4 superb boulangerie-patisseries,  a wine merchant, two well-stocked supermarkets, a couple of tabacs, a helpful pharmacy, bank and Post Office.

The village swimming lake with beach is a 15 minute stroll away, together with open air swimming pool, tennis courts, mini-golf and playing fields, where you can catch local Rugby and Football matches in season.

Slightly further afield, two more lovely swimming lakes with waterslides, pedalos and canoes can be reached within a short drive. If you would like to enjoy the surrounding countryside at a gentler pace, two bikes can be hired for a small charge, so you can explore the many lovely lanes, hills and dales of the Save Valley, with a pretty village and fantastic view waiting round every corner. The Comminges, one of the most venerable provinces of old Gascony, is a countryside rich in prehistoric, Roman and mediaeval sites, where the pace of life is gentle and unhurried, and the people hospitable and welcoming.

”The countryside is beautiful, off the main road there’s not a yard of level land (or is that a metre?) to be seen.  It is well worth getting lost just to experience the views.... this is not tourist country, it is a real place; true rural France.”
R.deV, Herts

This is not an area of mass tourism or mass development – the rhythms of farming and the natural world rule here – spring festivals, summer markets,gathering chestnuts and mushrooms in the autumn, and winter for relaxation and a bit of revelry! 

Home of Armagnac and Fois Gras, good food and drink are taken very seriously!  Every village has at least one patisserie: Our local village, L’Isle-en-Dodon, with even a small population has four - and a chocolatier! Delicious regional produce is readily available, from modest cafés to sophisticated gourmet restaurants. Many of the local farms and auberges offer home cooking and lunches where you will be treated to family recipes, like Strawberry and Cinnamon conserve, homemade paté and confit, and of course Magret de canard!

“…these rolling hills of the Comminges were beloved in antiquity and have seemingly changed little since: remarkably intact landscapes, unspoiled by billboards, subdivisions, and all the other detritus of our times. The departmental roads are still lined on either side with ancient plane trees, rare in the rest of France, where one or or both sides are sacrificed to road-widening schemes. Here there’s not enough traffic to bother…” (‘Gascony & the Pyrénées’, Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls)