Advertisement
Published: August 16th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Today was jam packed. Since it was a national holiday (jour férié) in France, Simone and I decided to take a day trip.
Originally, we had planned to go to Andorra, which is a very small country on the
border between France and Spain. If your geographic knowledge is like mine you were probably blissfully unaware of this countries existence and never knew there was a country between France and Spain. At about 7 times smaller than Rhode Island I can forgive its omissions from our grade-school maps, though they probably should have mentioned they were leaving countries out. Turns out, though, that according to the locals here in Limoux, Andorra is mostly about shopping. Since I’m not at all interested in shopping and am trying to shy away from the more touristy things to do, we decided to go further into the south of France.
If you’ve been reading this blog from the beginning, you may recall the trip we took to the south (through Alet les Bains and the Quillan). Today our plan was to take that same route, then shoot east to Perpignan and finally southeast to Collioure (on the Mediterranean, just above the border between France and Spain).
Collioure is a beautiful little sea side town. It was a center of artistic activity for the likes of Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and André Derain. Simone suggested that it was a beautiful trip and
the art and town were well worth seeing.
The ride alone was worth the trip. Within a couple of hours we went from the interior mountain roads with train tracks built into the sides of the walls and rivers running along side, to winding mountain roads with breathtaking views of the small seaports below. As we approached Collioure the town was extremely busy. It turns out that July and August are the busiest times, and it would have been nearly impossible to even find a place to park. We road through town and stopped on a observation point on the far side. We got out to take some pictures, but it almost immediately began to rain (it had been intermittent the whole trip). I suggested that we continue on to the next town to the south and maybe even on to Spain with the though that we would pass through on our way back and maybe the rain would have stopped, and some of the crowd subsided.
Well, we did end up driving on to Spain and it was definitely the right decision. Some of the views from the mountains dropping off to the oceans and sea port
towns below were just spectacular. I tried to take some pictures, but it is just impossible to do it justice.
In Spain we went through a very small town called Portbou, and on to an even smaller town, Colera. In Colera our hunger got the best of us so we stopped at a seaside café and ate. In this area, the predominant language is actually Catalan (which is not Spanish). The menus were in Catalan, which meant that even Simone could not translate. The food here was very simple. My meal consisted of an enormous slice of bread almost 2 inches thick. It was laid on its side, drizzled with some olive oil, a little tomato juice, and some spices and then topped with an egg and cheese omelet. Simone’s was similar except the toppings were eggplant, red peppers, and brie. The lunch service was leisurely, to say the least, but the view was great and sunny (having outrun the rain further up the coast). The owner was quite a character. While they were extremely busy and he was waiting tables, he looked like he had just rolled out of bed. His shirt was only half tucked into his
pants and he made a comment to Simone lamenting the number of customers (apparently preferring much less business).
The feeling, or energy, in Spain was very noticeably different from France as soon as you crossed the boarder. While the people from the south of France already seem earthy and more laid back to me, this was even truer in the Spanish port cities we passed through.
Earlier in the day we had made a commitment to have dinner at a friend’s house back in Limoux. It was a little strange to me to think “we’re in another country, but we’ll be back for dinner”. In fact, we almost didn’t make it because the traffic along the seaside road (yes, there is only one basic road) is very heavy during the high season (August). Apparently the situation is much more severe in areas like Saint-Tropez and Nice, which is why we have decided not to visit those areas (something I had planned before arriving). Still, after we made it back past Collioure it was smooth sailing to Limoux.
Simone’s friends, a couple with three beautiful children (I don’t know if they would want me to mention their names),
Jim Sighting
Yes, I really do exist (but only on the border between France and Spain). Note the classic "are you taking a picture" expression. were very kind and made us a fantastic vegetarian meal consisting of a variety of pizzas and an apple dessert with cream topping. The children (ages 7, 5, and I’m guessing, 2) were bouncing back and forth between English and French without a thought and I was once again lamenting my monolingual nature.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.201s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 13; qc: 25; dbt: 0.1296s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Diane
non-member comment
I shared your photos with my boys. Keep up the great photos, it is a great history lesson.