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MONTRÉAL-DU-GERS

Montréal-du-Gers, a bastide watching over a Gallo-Roman castle

Listed as one of the most beautiful villages in France, this bastide is the oldest in the department of the Gers. 57 Km northwest of Auch, it also invites us to discover the unique treasures of the famous Gallo-Roman villa of Séviac

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MONTREAL - Gers (32)

The name of the town, Montréal (or «Montroyal»), recalls the royal origins of this bastide founded in 1255 by Alphonse de Poitiers. Built into the rock on a promontory overlooking the little valley of the Auzoue, it had to play a strategic role as a constriction placed between the French and English domains during the Hundred Years war.

Of its past, Montréal-du-Gers has kept a rich heritage: a fortified enceinte, a vaulted city gate, timbered houses, a square surrounded by solid stone arcades, narrow passages leading to the different blocks of the bastide, ... Pleasant to live in, the town also occupies a place of choice in the middle of the vines which make Armagnac and Floc de Gascogne.

Montréal-du-Gers also owes its fame to the Gallo-Roman villa of Séviac nearby. The village's archaeological museum gives a very interesting preview of what you can see on the site of the dig, 5 minutes away. Visitors are confronted with an immense country palace full of series of rooms, marble colonnades, galleries opening on to gardens, luxurious baths and mosaic pavings.

Unique in Europe by their number, their colours and their well-preserved state, these mosaics unfold like sumptuous rugs decorated with flowers and leaves, vine branches and grapes, birds and swirling suns. Not to be missed!

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