Tempted, but not guilty. I did not nick the road sign outside Condom in south-west France, although many other English-speakers have. The French can't see what all the fuss is about - their word is préservatif. Now that would be a funny name for a town.

To the French, Condom is noted for the much more serious activity of armagnac production, that luscious golden liquor, cousin to cognac, and responsible for most of the economy of this area.

It's just such a conflict of appearances with fact that defines this area more than anything else.

Several times I have a 'where-am-I?' crisis when travelling these parts. One day I am heading up steep mountain passes. You know the sort of thing, golden cows too well-fed to move slumped in front of forever views finished by a lacy ruffle of snow-capped mountains.

Hours later we are at the coast, dazzled by the quasi-Riviera mansions of Biarritz which once hosted the crowned heads of Europe and Russia for their summer hols. The sun is shining, beaches busy, yet a cool almost chilly breeze wafts in from the water.

Then there's the matter of language. We notice it first in the far south near the Spanish border, where suddenly the road signs show alternative words. Rather than a polite touch for international travellers, it's actually Basque or euskara.

Here we see cemeteries with circular headstones and men wearing soft flat black berets and espadrilles. Occasionally, flying or hanging in windows, there's the Basque flag: red with a diagonal green cross superimposed by a white cross. For this is the land of a fiercely territorial people, wanting autonomy, separation, even, from the rest of France. The houses are different too, and we quickly deduce that red shutters (after a country full of green and faded blue ones) on crisp whitewashed homes denote Basque owners.

Aquitaine - the lilting name of this entire region could hardly be more prosaic. It translates, simply, as 'sea and mountains' which is fair enough as it takes up an Atlantic-bordered slab of the country between the Dordogne river and Spain.

Wine doesn't actually flow in the streets of Bordeaux, the capital of Aquitaine, but it certainly is its lifeblood - its claim to immortality if you like - nourishing the local economy for centuries. The Romans planted vines here, and wine was first exported from the port two thousand years ago.

(Condom Cathedral)

The English, when they came to power from the 12th to 15th centuries, got fat on its profits, and measured their warships by the quantity of wine (they called it claret) they carried. Today a conservative estimate of annual wine production of the 57 appellations of this 1000 square-kilometre region is a mind-boggling 700 million bottles.

The 18th century was a golden age for Bordeaux. Local town planner Baron Haussmann used it as a template for his transformation of Paris, but ports have a way of becoming grimy again and it is only recently that the city - which in September this year will host four matches of the Rugby World Cup - has been scrubbed up, again showing an elegant face.

The Brits fought over Aquitaine for centuries. The wealthy and fertile Eleanor of Aquitaine (she had ten children in 13 years to English king Henry II) was a romantic idealist too, it seemed. She was a strong woman, a feminist who believed in romantic love yet died in captivity, exiled by her man.

Now the Brits are taking over again, it seems, buying homes and B&Bs. Tourists come for the fine sandy beaches, caves inhabited since prehistory, chateaux and abandoned fortresses, France's largest forest, canals and those major rivers - the Lot, Garonne and Dordogne - rising far up in the central mountains and draining into the Atlantic

Aquitaine is a land of contradictions. Protestantism is strongest here yet over the past 1000 years it has been crossed by millions of pilgrims en route to Compostella and the shrine of St Jacques. Its bucolic dreaming countryside yields a gourmet grab bag: truffles, walnuts, sunflowers, chillies, foie gras and of course, wines, yet we pass signs advertising bull fighting.

The sixteenth-century French king, Henri IV, said it best: "Great cooking and great wines make a paradise on earth." Was he thinking of Aquitaine when he said it?

 - Sally Hammond

Have you been to this region? What did you discover there?