Gers - Culture

Culture

The culture is largely agricultural, with great emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as:

  • Armagnac brandy,
  • Côtes de Gascogne,
  • Floc de Gascogne,
  • foie gras,
  • and wild mushrooms.

Also, some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza, sunflowers and grain.

The Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not widely spoken.The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south.

Alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to d'Artagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac.

A horse race at the Auteuil Hippodrome has been named after André Boingnères, a notable local race-horse owner and the successful mayor of Termes-d'Armagnac between 1951 and 1976.

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