Bastide de Valentine

Valentine

At the gates of Saint-Gaudens, on the left bank of the Garonne, Valentine is famous first of all for the Gallo-Roman villa of Nymfius, a 4th-century estate excavated by Georges Fouet, whose owner's epitaph is kept in the musée Saint-Raymond in Toulouse. The bastide, for its part, is modest: in 1287 the seneschal of Toulouse Eustache de Beaumarchais built it on behalf of the king of France, on the margins of the Comminges. Until the Revolution the parish remained a Languedoc enclave, attached to one of the twenty-four civil dioceses of Languedoc under the name Petit-Comminges. The village keeps the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, a chapel of Saint-Roch, the sanctuary of Notre-Dame du Bout-du-Puy, fountains and a timber-framed house, and honours the memory of Marshal Foch, whose father's family owned a property there which has become a heritage centre.

Getting there : Free access to the village; the heritage and culture centre occupies the former property of the Foch family.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound