seaside town of Collioure, in south-west France, close to the Spanish
frontier.
At this stage, we’ve been to practically every seaside resort around the coast of France, as well as sampling some of those in Corsica, and I can quite honestly say that nowhere lives up to the expectations and the delivery of those expectations as Collioure. It’s a small town, with a permanent population of around 3,000. It’s set on a spectacular bay, framed to the north by the church of Notre Dame des Anges, with its curious pepper pot tower, and to the south by the vast bulk of the Chateau Royal. On both sides of the church, Collioure has dazzling beaches, while in the town itself, along its quaysides, many restaurants recall the glory days of the town a century ago, when it attracted many famous painters, including the inevitable Picasso.
Inevitably, too, the town has a little spoiled Vieux Quartier. The whole area of the town centre is compact and unspoiled, the mere thought of redevelopment an abomination not to be even considered. If this had been in Ireland, no doubt the place would be festooned with revolting modern concrete blocks without a semblance of design originality.
But with all kinds of hidden, traditional treaures, like weekly markets, Collioure maintains its status quo incessantly, despite the hordes of tourists from elsewhere in France during the summer. If the town changed its character dramatically, it would lose those tourists and the townspeople of Collioure are wise to retain as much of the old style as possible.
We had arrived in Collioure from Perpignan - it’s just a short train journey down the coast. The railway station in Collioure is high up behind the town and it’s a good walk from there down to the town centre. These days of course, the railway line passing through here has been much upgraded, for high speed trains. When we arrived in Collioure, we had more or less decided to stay in one of the
well-known historical hotels right in the middle of centre ville, but when we inspected the room they proposed to give us, we found that the walls outside the window were absolutely festooned in greenery, which in turn meant they were full of insects, a real turnoff. Whatever the view expressed in the past few days within the UN that we should really be eating insects as a daily part of our
diet (ugh!), we had no wish to be in such close proximity, so we passed on the idea of staying at this particular hotel.
Instead, we opted for the Hotel Méditerranée, on the road up to the station. It’s a modern style
hotel with no great pretensions, not even a restaurant, but perfectly basic and adequate. When we wanted we could create our own alfresco meals to enjoy on the balcony and it was all perfectly pleasant. We really enjoyed just wandering around Collioure and enjoying meals in restaurants in the small squares that dot the town centre and the quaysides.
The mere fact that we nearly came a cropper has never put us off Collioure. One sunny afternoon, we walked a considerable distance, just to the south of the town, along the road that skirts the Plage de
Port d’Avall, until we came to a small jetty. A group of scuba divers were preparing to go out in a boat and we asked the skipper if anyone else was organising any boat trips that glorious sunny afternoon. No, he replied, but if you want to tag along with us, you’d be more than welcome.
We sailed out into the bay, past the threatening cliffs to the south of Collioure, when all of a sudden the blazing hot sunny afternoon turned into a life threatening rainstorm. Not only did the temperature plunge, making it freezing cold, but suddenly, the sea became extremely rough, helped by a ferocious wind, and the rain poured down. Within a few minutes, the boat was going every which way, up and down, and we were soaked to the skin. We were wearing light summer clothes, but the scuba divers had the protection of their diving suits. The skipper shrugged his shoulders and said that this kind of sudden weather change was quite normal in this part of the Mediterranean. But even he began to get worried as he tried to turn the boat for home. Eventually, we made it back to the pier where we had started; we were very wet and very seasick, but nothing that a few cognacs in the nearest bar couldn’t put right. It was a truly frightening experience, and even to think of
it now induces the awful feeling of seasickness, but it has never put us off Collioure.
These days, the town has yet another attraction; in recent years, wine growing close to the town has really blossomed and these days, it’s much easier to find a really decent red, as well as whites
and rosés that’s been bred in Collioure. Another place we travelled to, just down the coast from Collioure was Banyuls sur Mer, itself a very distinctive wine town, but with a completely different style of wine. Its vinuous product is akin to a really good quality tawny port or an excellent Madeira, a definite hint of sweetness to it.
Also close to Collioure, and again just to the south of it, is the workaday port town of Port-Vendres, with a busy working harbour. The town is twice as big as Collioure, with a population of around
6,000.
We also discovered a strange literary tale in Collioure. For years,an English writer whose nom de plume was Patrick O’Brian, lived in the town. He wrote the Aubrey-Maturin novels of seafaring life
in Napoleonic times; shunning all modern means of putting words together, he was such a brilliant novelist that he has often been compared with the likes of Jane Austin. It was always assumed because of his name, that he was Irish and he did nothing to put people right. Eventually, the Daily Telegraph and the BBC revealed that his Irish persona was entirely false. He had lived in Collioure for years with his second wife. Eventually, Trinity College in Dublin gave him an honorary degree and he quite often spent time in Dublin towards the end of his life, especially after his wife had died. Then at the start of 2000, just 13 years ago, he was found dead in his hotel room in central Dublin. He was buried with his second wife in Collioure. It was a very, very strange story - proof, if any proof were needed, that behind the creation of the most brilliant of literature, there’s often an equally fascinating human
story.
Somewhere else we visited during that trip, even though it meant a rather long train journey, via Perpignan, was Carcassone. With its endless medieval town walls, turrets and castles, it’s almost
like a better class Disneyland, but much more authentic. The only trouble with Carcassone, especially in high summer, is that it’s a tourist Mecca, so it can be jam packed with visitors.
On the way back to Paris from Perpignan, we had an Airbus almost to ourselves and it was a very funny experience, because I ended up having a great chat with one of the stewardesses on the plane. She was French and lived in Paris, but in one of those curious twists, I ended up discussing with her all kinds of festivities and other delights in Paris that she had never heard about! I suppose it’s the same as
everywhere else; if you’re living in a particular place, you’ll see it in an entirely different light to a tourist just passing through.
While Collioure has retained so much of its painterly atmosphere because no developer would dream of setting foot in the place, I read another delightful story with a similar theme this week. Apparently
in Paris, in the 9th arrondissement, between the Opéra Garnier and Pigalle, an old fashioned apartment came to light. The owner of it, a Mme de Florian, had decided in 1939, just before the declaration of World War II, that it would be judicious to escape to the south of France. So she did just that and never set foot in the apartment in Paris again. It was only after she had died, three years ago, at the age of 91,that the apartment was discovered. It had been untouched for over 70
years, contained a vast array of art treasures, and resembled nothing so much as a scenario from the early years of the 20th century that had been set in aspic.
Talking about elderly ladies reminds me of another delightful contemporary story from France. SNCF, the State owned railway company, doesn’t usually get any bouquets, although I must admit I’ve never found serious disagreements over its services. But the other day, an elderly lady went
to the wrong platform at the Gare de l’Est in Paris. She was returning home to Reims, but ended up on the TGV to Nancy, nearly 200km from Reims. It wasn’t until she heard the on-board announcements that she realised she was on the wrong train. She told the man who was sitting next to her, who in turn alerted one of the staff on the train. The upshot was that SNCF arranged for the train to stop at a station it normally didn’t stop at, just short of Reims. There, the old lady was able to disembark from the train to Nancy. The following train, which was going to Reims, also didn’t stop at this station, made a special stop and a couple of SNCF workers were on hand to help her on board the train, which then brought her to her home station. What’ s more, one of the passengers on the original train, had told the old lady that they if they couldn’t solve her dilemma, he would more than gladly put her up for the night at his house in Nancy.
Still, the other day, I found myself discussing with a friend from Brittany one of the more ridiculous fads that has gripped the Paris restaurant scene over the past five years or so, spreading to other cities, like London. It’s the idea of eating in the dark; there is no light in the restaurant, so you have to concentrate on tasting the food. Neither can you see the other diners (which might be a plus
point!).
Meanwhile, French politics gets murkier and murkier. The other day, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said of his successor, Francois Hollande, that he is completely useless and has no
authority. Sarkozy said that society in France was very fragile and that the breaking of one more straw could break it. He even went so far as to say that he could be obliged to make a comeback. Sarkozy’s words coincide with a major annual poll on what people in the eight largest countries in the
EU, making up two-thirds of its population, think of the EU. The survey found growing disillusion with the EU right across Europe and found that nowhere was the decline in support faster than in France. This time last year, 60 per cent of people polled in France had faith in the EU, but now, that figure has fallen to 41 per cent. Not only have the French become totally disillusioned with
President Hollande but with the EU.
No wonder that a three story museum has been created in Brussels, called The House of European History in Exile. It’s in a disused boarding school just a 10 minute walk from EU headquarters. The man behind the venture, theatre director Thomas Bellinck, believes the EU will collapse in five years time, the result of the great depression in southern Europe (which now includes France), the growth of nationalism, separatism and neo-fascism. Perhaps it’s time we all started thinking what lies beyond the EU!