Montesquiou is located 1H00(55 km) from Tarbes/Lourdes airport, 1H40 (110 km) from Toulouse Blagnac airport, 1H20 (82 km) from Pau Pyrénées airport, 2H20 (180 km) from Bordeaux de Bergerac-Roumanière airport, 2H30 (200 km) from Carcasonne airport, and 2H30 (210 km) from Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne airport. The airports are serviced by major airlines and discount carriers Easyjet and Ryanair. There is no public transportation in Montesquiou. Train service is available to Toulouse, Bordeaux and to Auch (30 min from Montesquiou), and there are local buses and taxis.
A car is essential to explore the amazing sights. In most cases, rental cars can be returned at another airport with no extra charge, allowing for imaginative route planning (see “on the road” tab). Note that most car rentals in Europe come with a standard gear box – an automatic must be requested and reserved well in advance.
Our favorite route to Montesquiou is from Barcelona in Spain. Serviced by most major airlines (including direct flights from Canada on Air Transat and Air Canada), Barcelona is an amazing city by itself, worth staying for at least few days. There are several wonderful car routes to Montesquiou from Barcelona, along the rugged Costa Brava seashore or through the Pyrénées.
We also drove to Montesquiou from Paris (visiting overnight in Loire Valley and the town of Cognac, and another time visiting Normandy and Bordeaux) as well as from the east (visiting Nice, Marseilles, Monaco and Avignon).