Les Landes - Unknown Region To American Tourists..But OH!

One of France’s regions that I have fallen in love with over the last couple of years is Aquitaine. Bordered by Bordeaux on the north and Biarritz on the south. For most American tourists to France, it’s really a vast unknown area. In between those two cites lies an immense area known as Les Landes. Here you will find my favorite duck farm purveyor of Foie Gras (near the village of Baxente) and a fantastic stretch of beach, deserted it seems for hundreds of miles, with small villages and tourist hotels dotted here and there. There are no major hotels here, mainly French casual summer homes, cottages and B & B’s.
Travelling south from Bordeaux by road or rail, you pass for what seems like hours through an unremitting, flat, sandy pine forest known as Les Landes. Until the nineteenth century it was a vast, infertile swamp, badly drained because of the impermeable layer of grit deposited by the glaciers of the quaternary age and steadily encroached upon by the shifting sand dunes of the coast. Today it supports nearly 10,000 square kilometres of trees and since 1970 has been designated a parc naturel régional.
Here is a film overview of the area to tease you.