Mont de Marsan

In the spring of 2026 I spent two weeks in Mont de Marsan, a town an hour by train south of Bordeaux in the Landes area of southern France. Apart from a day- trip to the coast I spent my time walking the streets of the town photographing whatever caught my attention. As French no longer flows off my tongue with ease and accuracy this is an entirely personal response to the town with almost no influence of local knowledge or opinion. There was no attempt at documentation. I chose the town because it was unknown, accessible by train, small enough to investigate on foot and in south east France. Beyond that I only knew it was the prefecture of the Landes area, had an Air Force base and is a centre for agricultural feed and timber. The Landes is an area of flat pine forests bordered to the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The countryside is dull and repetitive but the beaches stretching north and south for miles are an attraction for surfers and sun bathers.  

There are many beautiful medieval towns in the south of France but Mont de Marsan is not one of them. Despite having a history that goes back to the early medieval period and the remains of a fine donjon there is now little to be found of the town’s past beyond scraps of medieval architecture that have to be searched out. Even the largest church is dull 19th century with grass growing around the entrance pillars. The town is on the confluence of the rivers Douze and Midou that in the centre of town become delightfully the Midouze. Strolling along the quays in the centre of town one can imagine the shouts of barge owners and the noise of trade that would once have dominated the town, but one has to work at it. There is little for the imagination to hold on to. Nowadays trade is carried out on the outskirts of the town where trucks can access the main arterial roads and jet fighters roar around the sky leaving the town quietly unhurried much of the time.

But the town has the charm, not of history but of humanity. The attractions of Mont de Marsan are of the present not of the past. Despite the evidence of neglect and decay the town has life: an extensive weekly market, a bullring, several bookshops including one that is also a bar and a live music venue, a rock music school and music venue, a flamenco festival, a rugby stadium and a well-known rugby team and, of course, as this is France plenty of bars and restaurants. I first encountered a crowd after walking the streets for a couple of days when at lunchtime I went down some steps into a restaurant beside one of the bridges. The pavements were quiet but this restaurant was completely full. I had to wait while a smiling waiter cleared a table in a corner. It is a rule accepted by all solitary diners that single customers are given tables in a corner, or behind a pillar or just beside the door to the toilets. On this occasion I was happy with the table and the food. Even my cracked French was greeted with a smile.

I discovered over the course of my stay that, despite the sleepiness of the streets, a crowd can come together as if from nowhere as in the lunchtime restaurant. On Saturday the extensive market hall is full of shoppers with baskets to fill, the Place St-Roch fills with extra stalls and the cafes have their tables out on the square whatever the weather. On a rainy Saturday evening the same square was packed with the youth of the town for whom at least two bars had set up speakers with music blasting out into the street-side tables. Even Mont de Marsan comes alive on Saturday night. Another evening as I sat having an evening beer in an almost empty bar a crowd suddenly appeared outside the theatre armed with umbrellas to protect their smart clothes from a sudden shower. On my second evening in town I went to the cafe/bookshop to listen to a live band and looking behind me discovered the place, which had been largely deserted when I had arrived, was now rammed with people spilling out onto the street. Before long everyone was singing along to the chorus of one of the songs. This wasn’t just some local folk/rock band but a group with a history and a following. And no doubt if there had been bullfighting during my stay that would have attracted an even larger crowd. The only other person I know who has been to Mont de Marsan came specifically for the flamenco festival of which there was no trace when I was there apart from a single rather battered and locked door.

There is an unexpected aroma of music in the town. The bookshop/bar, Les Characteres, has regular evening gigs, there is an annual flamenco festival and a large building overlooking the river called Cafe Music has gigs, studios and tuition. I spotted a number of middle-aged men going that way with guitars on their backs. For a musician that was a warming sight. 

The suburbs of any town are by definition incoherent. This is where people live beyond the centre often implying something lesser but also something more attractive, more decorous, something with a garden and a two-car garage. So there could be anything there. Connected to the world beyond by a number of straight roads that lead out in to the dull flatlands of the Landes the suburbs lie in the spaces between. I cannot pretend to have walked every street in the town but I did cover enough ground to find both aspects of the idea of suburbs. There were many narrow streets bordered on both sides by neat two-story houses with wisteria winding round the front fence and a glimpse of a groomed lawn and a set of garden chairs. There were other houses where the ideals of suburbia were ignored leaving a dilapidated house with peeling paint and an overgrown garden and a single garden lounger slowly being enveloped by grass. I also found the sort of blank-faced multi-story blocks where one can imagine students, immigrants and the elderly live listening to each other’s noise through thin walls and sweltering in the hot southern summer.