Banyuls-Sur-Mer

 With heads full of the tales of artists, free thinkers and refugees we'd discovered the day before we set out again into the rising heat of another sunny October day, following in the foot steps of those who'd escaped along these paths not so long ago. 

Our route started on the outer edge of Port Vendres, a small fishing town, squeezed around a harbour in the shadows of the surrounding mountains. As we left the town, the landscape became rocky and barren, evidence of recent wild fires in the blackened fingers of dead trees.  We climbed steeply, the sea a glistening calm blue as we stopped to catch our breath and glance back to see how high we'd come.

The path became rocky and narrow as it circled steep headlands and soon we could see the lighthouse at the end of Cap Béar, a wild exposed outcrop with vertiginous black cliffs. After going up and up we scrambled through a small gorge of rocks and then steeply down, a whole new vista of the Cȏte Vermeille stretching southwards to the distant Pyrenees came into view. 

The sun glowed higher in the sky and the further south we walked the hotter the day became. Small hidden coves tempted as we climbed down from the cliff edges and I splashed my face and neck with the cool blue sea. Occasionally we disturbed an autumn bather, gloriously naked in the sun, oblivious to the walkers passing above, dust turning our legs brown until we looked like a pair of pilgrims. As the path veered from the coast we headed to a forest of pines, relishing some shade in the heat of the day. A couple sat with a glass of wine in the back of their truck in the shade, their legs intertwined. They smiled as we commented in halting French that they had found the perfect spot, and clinked their glasses with a 'salud' for the remainder of our journey.

The path continued, down again, steeply into another cove then back up the other side as we edged into the outskirts of our next stop, Banyuls-Sur-Mer, a large town and clearly on the tourist route yet retaining that seaside charm of ice cream and deck chairs. Although we'd arrived in the town, there was still some distance to go, the looping sandy bay deceivingly large. Another artist had made the town famous, Aristide Maillot, his classical nude sculptures dance along the sea front or float above a bed of cacti. We stopped for a beer halfway along the front, feeling self-conscious of the dirt of the tracks and our sweat streaked faces before setting of again, back through the side streets and up a set of what felt like a 100 steps to find our next base, Hotel Catalan, set high over the town.