Anchovies and Matisse, exploring Collioure
Arriving in Barcelona after the first flight from London, our only thought was coffee. Squeezing our rucksacks onto the metro, we adjusted our clothing to the rising heat of an early October morning in the Catalan city, a welcome difference to the damp darkness of London we’d left behind. The large station café beckoned, and soon we sat sipping perfect café solo’s with a Spanish breakfast of toast and tomato. Energised by the very necessary caffeine we turned our attention to getting a ticket for the slow train to France, a very cheap (€13.50) two and half hour journey to Cerbère, just over the border.
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| Clouds of blue flowers in the October sun |
The train emptied as we moved towards the edges of the city, at each stop more passengers got off and less got on, fellow travellers taking the cheap route, workers, students, young migrant families. The stations got smaller as it passed across fields and scrubland, heading towards the ever present ridge of mountains. Finally, we reached the last station in Spain, Port Bou and the only other remaining passengers got off before we slipped through a tunnel and into France.
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| Arriving into Cerbère station |
Cerbère station is huge and grand but almost derelict and empty, tickets desks stand idle, festooned in cobwebs and dust, it felt like stepping into a forgotten set of a 1940s movie, and there would have been no surprise to see Humphrey Bogart leaning against a door smoking a cigarette. Instead, we were met by a local taxi driver, coughing, and spluttering with what we hoped was too many Gauloises but may have been Covid. We held our breath on the back seat as he raced through the twists and turns of the precipitous coastal road with the confidence of a local driver. Finally, with a flourish and another considerable bout of coughing, he announced our arrival “Collioure, Collioure”.
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| Traditional painted boats in Collioure harbour |
Collioure is a small fishing port, famous for its anchovies and previously part of Catalonia, becoming French after the Franco-Spanish wars of the late Middle Ages. There is clearly still a heavy Catalan influence, red and yellow striped flags flicker from the masts of wooden boats and adorn many balconies. The harbour is dominated by the heavy fortified walls of the Château Royal, formerly the summer home of the kings of Mallorca and the Eglise Notre Dame des Anges, which appears as though it floats, its stone walls reflecting the golden light of the evening sun. The town is famous for the artists who found inspiration here, the most famous being Matisse and Derain, who established a style of painting known as Fauvism. Sitting with a large gin and tonic at a beach side bar, it was easy to feel artistic inspiration in the colours of a Mediterranean evening.
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| Hotel La Casa Païral |
Our first two nights would be spent in La Casa Païral, right in the centre of the town, up a short, cobbled alley from the main square. The hotel is actually two buildings, a large house dating from the 19th century and a converted anchovy salting house with a pretty shaded garden between the two. The house is full of antiques and paintings, and a cosy library room piled high with books on art and local history. It’s the kind of room where you want to spend a peaceful evening, curled up in a frayed old chair with a brandy, reading about the lives of painters, its gloriously Bohemian. In the archway entrance a huge oil painting of a Spanish bull fighter stood glaring menacingly above a red painted cabinet and the tiled steps illustrated sea creatures and flowers. I felt very at home.
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| Restaurant La Cuisine Comptoir |
Following a recommendation we ate at a small tapas bar, La Cuisine Comptoir, hidden down a tiny street, our table under an ancient fig tree. A small toddler sat playing alone with a plastic T-Rex as his parents drank wine inside, European childhood is much free-er than in the UK. We ate plates of salty anchovies, a carpaccio of pumpkin, raw tuna and an excellent spicy tomato salad.
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| Sunday market |
Starting early the next day we stumbled across a Sunday market, the stalls setting up before the crowds, baskets of figs, chestnuts, chanterelles, and ceps, piled high amongst huge country loves, local honey, cheeses and fake Louis Vuitton. We stopped at a tiny table where a dusty nut brown girl, hair tied up with a bandana was setting up Chemex coffee filters, a tiny slice of Shoreditch in a small French town. She turned out to be American, all the way from Detroit, visiting and falling in love with the town (and no doubt one of its citizens). We all agreed the surrounding stalls looked perfect, be careful, she warned, it’s all too easy to end up staying in Collioure.
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| Paths of freedom |
Our first full day of walking took us up into the hills surrounding Collioure, along the chemins de la liberté, the paths of freedom, the route taken by persecuted refugees, French Resistance fighters, and Allied pilots shot down on French soil during the years 1940-44 and in 1939, in the other direction, almost half a million Spanish Republicans escaping Franco’s occupation of Catalonia during the ‘Retirada’. A small sign reminded today’s hikers “happy and confident’ to remember those who had passed not so long before, in fear of their lives. High into the hills and surrounded by vineyards, we found another memorial to the tragic past, a small iron cross in memory of a local firefighter, Luc Sole, who died in 1975, fighting late summer wildfires. Turning back towards Collioure we passed two forts and endless vineyards before a long steep descent back into the town. Here we stopped at the Musée d'Art Moderne (€6), to see the exhibition ‘Front de Mer’, telling the story of the artists and liberal thinkers who lived in the town during 1940. Another sombre reminder of a harsh past.
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| Local life in the market bar |
Dusty and thirsty, we sought refuge in the shade of a cheerful local bar, elderly ladies supped crème de menthe and the patron poured himself another generous glass of wine as he and his friends shouted encouragement at the rugby players wrestling on the large screen. He flirted deliciously with every female guest, with characteristic French charm. Gesturing to our table as I paid the bill and in perfect English, he asked “your husband?” with a twinkle in his eye.
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| Restaurant Casa Leon |
Later, we dined at Casa Leon, a popular local restaurant that you need to book (best done in person or by phone). Tables spill out across the cobblestones, the harbour visible through a large stone arch. We dined on more anchovies plus boquerones, tapenade and perfectly grilled sea bream, supping a local wine hopefully from the vineyards we had walked through earlier. Collioure is certainly charming, golden sunlight, pretty houses in an artist’s palette of hues, turquoise waters and mountain views but there is also a hidden sadness here, a not so distant shadow, forgotten by the day trippers and holidaymakers but reflected in the haunting face of the rusting Christ facing out towards the winds and the sea at the tiny hermitage of St Vincent perched on a rocky outcrop of the harbour wall.
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| Chapelle St Vincent |
rue des Palmiers
Lovely hotel, good breakfast, spacious comfortable rooms in two old buildings surrounding a pretty garden (plus tiny swimming pool). €€
2 rue Colbert
Tiny and popular, so you do need to book (best by phone or in person). Inventive small plates of local seasonal produce with a slight Japanese twist. €€
2 rue Rière
Excellent fish but also steak (generous entrecôte) and friendly professional service, a treat (and surprisingly good value). €€
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