Perpignan (well, actually Collioure): Day 3

Our third day began with a train ride to Collioure, a beach town about 30 minutes south of Perpignan. The walk from the station to the beach was quick– just about 5 minutes. The highlight of the trip was touring the Majorcan king’s summer palace, and hearing about its changes and growth over 5 centuries. This set of pictures is from our time wandering the town before the tour.


Lunch was tasty; we found a seaside restaurant and had some good fish. I had the ocean special, an appetizer, entree, dessert combo dinner, while the rest of “team faculty” has a tasty something a piece. Sadly, I didn’t think to take pictures of it. It began with a , continued with a baltic sea salad (minced zuchini in a red sauce, green salad center, with some salmon tartar) and finished with a bowl of berries in sweet wine. A tasty way to fuel up for a long afternoon of tromping around.

The castle was great, made better by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide with good English skills. The first picture is a view of the city from the lower battlements (from the Renaissance). Turning to the right, you look up at the old keep: the Majorcan summer palace.

Here the docent is showing off stones recovered from the bay, thrown by catapults and trebuchets. The rusty ones at the front of the picture are early cannon balls.

The first two photos are views from the wall top. The second picture is of a signal tower in the distance– they used to relay messages from Collioure to Perpignan in 10 minutes via the towers, while a horseman’s journey would be 3 hours. The third picture is from the battlements added in the late 1700s by Vauban, a famous military engineer who embraced the star pattern fort. The last is a vent in the floor of the walkway– created to draw out the smoke created by firing black powder cannons and muskets below.

In the above photo the guide explained, with a quick sketch in the dirt, how the palace/fort grew over time. It started as a two tower keep in Medieval times, with one facing the sea, one the land approach, surrounded by a low wall and gatehouse (as the Majorcan king’s summer palace). Once Majorca was absorbed by Aragon (which later became Spain), it grew as an important front line fort. Taller walls were built and the towers were linked by a hall. After the Treaty of the Pyrenees [very important locally] in 1659, the fort passed to French hands and was upgraded for the new era’s weaponry. Vauban extended points off of the previously rectangular fortress to provide clear lines for musket and cannons and to eliminate dead spots for the enemy’s advance. Similarly, the approach was changed from a sea-side gate to a long bare slope covered by the fort’s guns– a deadly kill zone ending in a deep ditch and drawbridge.

The next photos are from the barbican surrounding the main entry. Evidently the locals were conscientious about costs and just dumped burning tree pitch, instead of investing in boiling oil or wasting potable water during a siege. The second photo is of the barbican roof, which had a hole at its peak– also to allow smoke to clear. The third photo is from a gunslit in the walls looking over the ditch below. The fourth thumbnail shows the approach slope and walls from the outside.

After our tour of the castle (which I found fascinating), we grabbed ice cream, wandered the city, and settled near the carousel, where the train up the mountain was going to pick us up. Unfortunately, the location was a mix up (they had moved the carousel for the summer), so we hustled to catch the train. This wound up the mountain until we reached Fort Dugommeir, where we hopped off. The views were gorgeous.

Here, we were met by Marc-Andre, the artist owner of Fort Dugommier. He’s two years in to a 5 year project to excavate the buried fort and restore it for use. It’s an ambitious project, mostly possible due to extensive volunteer labor working in two week shifts throughout each summer. As an artist he’s very into male/female dualities, so one of the first things we encountered was a stacked stone funnel– one of his recurring inspirations. Jennifer took over the camera and found a cute bug hard at work. After a while I took the camera back and shot the picture from the concealed gunslit– inside the walls, set up to fire into the hall itself. After exiting, we climbed a steep stair to the old battlements, now a beautiful point of land overlooking Collioure.

From there, we jogged back to meet the next train down. I snapped a photo of the Spanish fort that Dugommier was built to keep an eye on, a tree stripped of bark for cork (they harvest every 7 years), and Port Vendres (a working port, in contrast to Collioure’s heavy tourism emphasis, located nearby).

That’s the end of the day’s photos, but not the end of the day. After finishing our tour on the scenic train, we crossed the town and hopped on board the real train back to Perpignan. When we got back, we headed to our room, rested for a few minutes, changed, and headed over to Florenz’s for a very nice dinner party. Dinner was excellent– a lazy three courses, with a dinner of wonderful lamb, chased by some beautiful crepes filled with sugar and covered in flambed grand marnier. I stuffed myself with a second crepe filled with nutella as we talked for a while longer. Eventually we noticed that it was already 11:30 [notice a theme], and class began early the next morning, so we headed home and collapsed.

It’s been a busy beginning– exhausting, but great and tiring you enough to drop right off.

I’m going to get out in the sunshine, so it’ll be a while before I continue my saga with days 4 (and today as day 5 if I’m really with it).