It resembles a foretaste. Certainly it is not yet the impenetrable softwood forest of the high moors. However, it is no longer the urban landscape close to the city. It is a sample, almost an invitation, to come treading on the pine needles with an adventurous foot.
Forest
Mées
The village forms a sharp angle, marked by the famous stone of Tinon. At the end of the 19th century, the last swamps and peatlands of the area were cleaned up and reduced to the current floodplains.
However, some peatlands remain, as in Estanque, where a path on stilts is laid out to discover this once common environment in our region that is today endangered. This remarkable natural site of exceptional ecological value extends over a hundred hectares.
Angoumé
This little village in the Adour Valley is growing as a result of its immediate proximity to the economic basins of Dax and Bayonne. Although it is today mainly a residential town, Angoumé nonetheless welcomes tourists with accommodation in rural lodgings and guest rooms. With attractive facilities such as hiking trails, combined with a good restaurant, such as the Michel Gracia Cidery, installed in an old royal post-house set up by Louis XI.
Herm
Access to the village requires crossing the pine forests that enclose the village on all sides. Hiking trails enable you to discover this local heritage: the pine forest. Herm is also known for its women’s rugby club founded in 1990: the Pachy’s of Herm. They have been participating for almost 30 years in the French Women’s Rugby Championships, thus contributing to the notoriety of rugby in Landes and their village of origin.
Gourbera
Like its neighbour Herm, this little town nestled in the heart of the forest lives mainly from silviculture. Hiking trails (on foot or by mountain bike), such as the Gourbera loop trail (10 km/3 hrs), enable you to discover the Landes forest of course, but also the ponds, the ferruginous spring of Bouhette, the little stream of Pountinbéou and the Pouymartet Mill dating from 1540, making it one of the oldest in Landes
Rivière-Saas-et-Gourby
An unusual sight at Rivière-Saas-et-Gourby… Along the railway on the SNCF arches, storks have built their nests. This beautiful bird, emblem of Alsace, has indeed taken up residence there, in a very uncomfortable place, at the top of the catenaries of the TGV Atlantique railway line.
