A visit to Perpignan
Monday, February 16th, 2009 Another beautiful day weatherwise yesterday and we had decided to visit Perpignan. We had been to the airport several times but had never been into the town itself. 
As with many places in this part of France Perpignan has a long history having once been the capital city of the counts of Roussillon and the kings of Majorca. That last fact struck me as being strange but apparently the town was the mainland capital of the kingdom of Majorca. It lacked a palace fit for a king so in 1276 Palais des Rois de Majorque was built. It looks more like a fortress than a residence and is quite impressive. The views from the Tour de l’Hommage (entrance tower) are splendid, looking over the town and across towards the Massif du Canigou. It is only a short walk from the main part of the town to reach this historical building.
While walking towards the palace we passed Le Castillet a 15th century building which used to be used as a prison but is now used as a museum devoted to local crafts and festival. We did not go inside for two reasons, 1 We had the dog with us and 2 It was Sunday in February and not open. It is a lovely building consisting of two towers built in red brick, it is the only surviving part of the towns fortified walls. Carrying on with our walk we arrived at the Cathedral St-Jean which I believe has a magnificent altar but as it was under cover one presumes it is under going some restoration. The rest of the cathedral has some lovely stained glass windows and I quite liked the wrought iron bell tower (each to his own).
For anybody that likes shopping (I am not one ) the shops in the narrow streets offer a wide variety of goods. Many of the shops are individual and sell traditional catalan things such as fabrics and jewellery. My favourite sort of shopping is markets so we will have to return on a market day. we arrived too late for the sunday morning flea market but they also have a bric-a-brac one, on the second saturday of each month as well as the daily fruit and vegetable one that nearly all the fair sized towns have.
We did enjoy our wander around Perpignan but we also enjoyed the drive back to Beziers. Instead of returning along the N9 we headed to the coast and came back via Leucate. Leucate consists of a port,a plage and a small town. It is possible to sit nearly on the beach and eat mussels and oyster (cultivated locally). We have done this in the past and very nice they were too. We also saw some flamingoes en-route but they were too far out in the etang (lake) to merit a photo. One other little deviation was to drive past the Wild Life Park at Sigean. Obviously not a great deal to see from the road side but it was amusing to see Peetes reaction to an ostrich. That is definitely a visit for another day i believe they have bears there so it is a must. NOT the dog though.
