Local crafts
The worthy heirs of the local crafts are the small plus of the various annual fairs and markets where they know a real success. These little hands do not hesitate to revive ancestral know-how: basketry, pottery, lacemaking, sculpture, woodwork, stonework, slate, silk painting... There are so many talents that it is difficult to forget any of them! Glass remains a material that artists like to shape with their breath, especially in Agos-Vidalos, and stained glass windows still have some rare professionals dedicated to them. If the restoration of religious ornaments is their main activity, they are no less true artists and enjoy creating modern and luminous atypical works. In a pastoral territory, the old-fashioned spinning has a place of choice and each valley offers beautiful windows filled with traditionally woven clothes. The real wool of the Pyrenees has given way to industry, but to rediscover its incomparable softness, head for Luz-Saint-Sauveur where a small company perpetuates this delicious knitting.
Local products
It has the power of the mountains whose flavours it carries to the summit, sometimes soft and delicate like its plains, it surprises with the scents of undergrowth, melting like a coat of snow that disappears under the sun: this is the gastronomy of the Hautes-Pyrénées. Ancestral recipes are passed down from generation to generation, what was good remains so and is reinvented by daring chefs. There are countless fine restaurants that offer local cuisine that has been skilfully reworked. With products that can only be found on the land or in the rivers of Bigorre, the cuisine of the department only needs know-how and creation, the best is there, within reach: Tarbais beans, sweet onions from Trébons, carrots from Asté, black pork from Bigorre, trout from the Pyrenees, wines from Madiran and Pacherenc-Vic-Bilh, duck confits, sheep from Barèges and wild blueberries... you will succumb, we know it. The producers and farmers present on the markets will delight in helping you discover this incredible heritage, often AOC, which has inspired the tasty typical recipes. Garbure, honey pancakes, fried fresh liver, Barousse cheeses, farmhouse pork meats, pies and spit-roasted cakes, it's an epicurean journey from which it is difficult to return. To share the pleasure, because otherwise the meal is not finished, bring back in your suitcase the secrets of these recipes that make the mountains and hillsides a map of flavors without borders.
