SDC06 Cadillac-Orthez

7th stage from Oekene (Roeselare) to Santiago de Compostela: from Cadillac to Orthez, 176 kilometers and 1230 meters of elevation.

First, you ride about 10 kilometers along the Garonne to leave the valley with a climb in Pregnac and ride through a beautiful wine region where you pass through the vineyards of 'Sauterne'. After 41 kilometers, you leave the department of 'Gironde' and enter the department of 'Landes'.

The forest of les Landes is a large contiguous forest area in the southwest of France. It is largely a moss-pine forest and is almost entirely made up of planted industrial forest. Until the 19th century, the area was particularly sparsely populated and covered with shrubbery. The forest was established in an attempt to breathe new life into the local economy. Wood and paper are the main products of the local economy. In the past, a lot of resin was also extracted, but this product has largely been replaced by synthetic resins on the market.

You take a slight detour to Notre Dame des Cyclistes, a small rural church that is entirely dedicated to the Tour de France, it deserves the detour...

Orthez is a municipality in the French department Pyrénées-Atlantiques (region Aquitaine) and has 10,121 inhabitants (1999). It lies by the river ‘la Gave de Pau’, a river that comes from Pau and flows into the Atlantic Ocean via Bayonne and Biarritz. The history of Orthez began around the 11th century, in the Romanesque period. Orthez originated from the merger of two municipalities on either side of the Gave. Although Orthez is quite a large town, it primarily relies on livestock farming and vine growing.