To Nérac, in the footsteps of French king, Henri IV
A true Gascon river port
Riding away from the Garonne Canal, enter the Pays d’Albret, a traditional Gascon region, heartland of Henri de Navarre, who became France’s first Bourbon king as Henri IV in 1589. Your first stop on the Scandibérique following in the footsteps of this philandering ‘‘Green Gallant’’ is Barbaste’s Moulin des Tours. This fortified flour mill built in 1308 looks like a little fort and was once owned by Henri IV; just upstream from a nine-arched medieval bridge, it served as a tollgate. The mill has four crenellated corner towers of differing heights, said to refer to the original mill owner’s four daughters!
Nérac, capital of the Albret region, boasts an exceptional heritage. With its castle, medieval and Renaissance houses and Parc de la Garenne laid out for Henri IV’s first wife, Marguerite de Valois (‘‘la Reine Margot’’), this little town crossed by the charming Baïse River counts among France’s prettiest river ports. The Château Henri IV, for a time a royal residence, bears witness to Nérac’s historic riches and the apogee of the aristocratic Albret family.
