Les Landes: 120 kilometres of French beaches tourists skip, and one emperor who made them

The largest artificially planted forest in Western Europe, 120 kilometres of dune beaches and the Pyrenees handing it a privileged microclimate - this is Les Landes, a region in southwestern France that most tourists skip on their way to more famous spots. And that is exactly why it is worth knowing about.

The landscape we see today is not the work of nature, but of an emperor. In the nineteenth century there were only swamps and heathland here, where the few shepherds had to wear stilts to move through the water. Napoleon III, passing through the region on the way to Biarritz, decided to drain the ground by planting maritime pines. The initiative succeeded, and the inhospitable country became a marshy land. Sometimes even imperial whims leave something useful behind.

When the emperor's wife, the Spanish aristocrat Eugénie de Montijo, accompanied her husband on his travels, a frequent stop was Eugénie-les-Bains, a small town with thermal waters. There, 50 years ago, the couple Christine and Michel Guérard created Les Prés d'Eugénie - a country manor under the Relais & Châteaux banner, surrounded by lush gardens, which quickly became one of France's great gastronomic destinations. The restaurant bearing the name of Michel Guérard, a pioneer of the nouvelle cuisine, has held three Michelin stars since 1977.

If the second home of the elite is gastronomy, the first is the sea. From the mid-twentieth century, with the rise of surfing, coastal villages like Hossegor, Seignosse and Capbreton established themselves as beach and nature destinations. The waves of Gravière beach, especially the autumn ones, drew the best surfers, and Hossegor became the epicentre of international championships. Today people come here for the waves, the forest, the lakes and, above all, the peace you can breathe.

If surfers are the masters of the sea, cyclists rule the land - thanks to 600 kilometres of bike paths. At dawn you can see them at the market in Capbreton, by the harbour, buying fresh fish, especially the famous hake. Then it is pedalling on to the Marais d'Orx nature reserve, a paradise for birdwatchers, or to the legendary Black Lake, about which circulate legends as dark as its waters.

The best way to tour Les Landes is by car. From San Sebastián it is around two and a half hours. For a Balkan traveller used to overcrowded beaches and hotels lined up one against the other, it is an almost strange sight: 120 kilometres of sand, and there is still room to breathe. The only question is how long it will stay that way.