PERPIGNAN – France’s Little-Known City of Colors and Sunshine

I had never heard of Perpignan until I decided to spend my first nonworking year (I never use the word “retired”) relearning French somewhere in France. I looked at a map, and my eyes went to the south, looking for a warm climate, and I saw the name “Perpignan.” Then I looked at Google images of Perpignan and saw palm trees, blue skies and the iconic Castillet, the city’s medieval gate, and my decision was made. Called by some the second-sunniest city in France, Perpignan has 250 days of sunshine and its own microclimate. It might be overcast and gray in Toulouse, only a two-hour train ride away, but the sun will be shining in Perpignan.

Surprises Around Every Corner

When you visit Perpignan, you will not see any of France’s famous monuments, but you will see colors and more colors. Photography has been a passion of mine for a long time, and not noticing Perpignan’s vibrant colors would be impossible. Colors everywhere! The blue skies, the pastel colors of the architecture, the bricks of the Castillet, the garnet-shaped theater L’Archipel — a vibrant red inside and out, designed to symbolize the area’s garnet industry — the fresh vegetables and fruits of the Casanyes Market.

Salvador Dali, who called Perpignan in Catalan, his native language, “el centre du mon,” “the center of the world,” caught some of those colors, such as the one he painted of the Perpignan train station. You will experience Catalan culture and its spicy cuisine, along with the cuisine of southwestern France: a variety of dishes made with duck and many others with mussels and other seafood. You will sample some of France’s finest wines from nearby Collioure, whose rocky, dry soil and steep, south-facing hills create intense, full-bodied wines.  

       

For Lovers of History

If you are a history buff, seeing the Palais des Rois de Mallorque, the Palace of the Kings of Mallorca, will intrigue you with its medieval history and the immensity of its Gothic architecture. The palace was begun in 1274 as a fortress by the first king of Majorca, King Jaime II, who wanted to protect Perpignan’s growing prosperity. It is believed that Perpignan was settled around the beginning of the 10th century and at that time became a commercial center for the Roussillon region.

The Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud will delight you with wall-sized paintings of Louis XIV and even of the Sun King’s mother. Hôtel Pams, not a hotel but a mansion built between 1852 and 1872, was built by Pierre Bardou, who made his fortune by manufacturing cigarette papers, now owned by the city of Perpignan and open to the public.

Each September, Perpignan hosts an international photojournalism festival, Visa Pour l’Image, showcasing reported and unreported news events around the world. The festival brings light to environmental problems around the world, how countries may or may not be addressing them, and the consequences of governmental inaction. It also highlights cultural practices — anything from weddings to the lives of nomadic tribes — senior women playing a game of basketball on one wall, and the harsh treatment of prisoners on another.

As you walk along Perpignan’s medieval streets, you may be surprised by what or whom you see. The city’s narrow streets attest to the summer heat, as the buildings were constructed close to one another, creating cooling shade.

Along the Canal Vauban, which runs through the center of Perpignan and is bordered by cafés and retail shops, you will also find Les Halles, an indoor market that opened in 2017. Even before entering the large market area, you will be tempted by an assortment of gelato and French pastries at the entrance. Entering the main area of Les Halles, however, you might be overwhelmed by the choices awaiting you — which of the 27 stands to visit to purchase fresh fruits, meat, fish, oysters, shrimp, a huge assortment of olives and dried fruits, cheese from the Pyrenees, regional wines and craft beers. Or you can choose among several restaurants and enjoy the cuisine of Morocco, Lebanon, Portugal and Catalonia, or just a well-made American cheeseburger.

Les Halles is most often crowded on weeknights and weekends, and there is an outdoor seating area. If you are early enough, you’ll find a comfortable sofa where you can sit and enjoy your meal with a glass of wine in the convivial atmosphere. You might even be able to learn to dance the tango or watch a soccer game with some locals.

The 14th-century Saint John the Baptist Cathedral was built in Gothic-style architecture, with one central nave, in the center of Perpignan. Catalan culture and history are part of the history of this region of France, Roussillon. The red and yellow Catalan flag, symbolizing blood and battlefields, can be seen in numerous places in Perpignan and across the region.

Next to the cathedral is the cloistered cemetery Campo Santo, where a medieval village is recreated once a year with singing troubadours, music and dancing, knights in combat, and demonstrations of forging, leather crafts and pottery making.

Casanyes, a Local Market Shared by Several Cultures

Open-air markets can be found all over France. They make up much of the culture of towns and villages and are social gathering places as much as places to do one’s daily food shopping. If you are an early riser, you will see women and men setting up their stalls of fresh fruit, vegetables, huge platters of paella, olives, dried fruit, inexpensive clothing, jewelry, makeup and the greatest variety of household gadgets imaginable. 

The meat markets are all halal, well-stocked, organized and clean. Fresh fish from the nearby Mediterranean is available every day. The market is open each day from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., and it is not just what you’ll find in the market, but also the people you will see and hear — friendly women calling to customers, promising the best prices.

Some will even give you an extra carton of blueberries or whatever fruit you may be buying. I remember filling my bag with a variety of fruits and vegetables, and when I handed it to the merchant to pay him, he looked through my bag and asked me for 6 euros. The price would easily have been double in any supermarket, and without all the conviviality of the Casanyes Market.

What makes this market unique from others, however, is the mingling of two very distinct, very different cultures: Rom (Gypsy/Gitan) and North African. The Casanyes Market borders the St. Jacques neighborhood, which had been a Jewish enclave for many years until around 1940, when the Rom community began moving in along with African families.

The two communities, Rom and North African, are often at odds and violence erupts from time to time, but they do agree on one important point — they will not allow the government to demolish the neighborhood as it has proposed doing, even with the promise of better housing. Not only the Rom and North African communities, but local people as well who wanted to preserve the neighborhood, were also joined by an assortment of local middle-class groups who were keen to preserve St. Jacques’ architecture and cultural atmosphere.

Talks to make the neighborhood a UNESCO site continue. These facts, however, do not hide the realities of life in St. Jacques. Unemployment is very high — some estimates put it at 90% — and public assistance is the norm. School attendance is not a high priority for some Rom families, creating future problems for the children who reach adulthood with minimal reading and writing skills. Health is poor among many because of a diet of processed foods, resulting in obesity and other health problems.

My host family has a young Rom man as part of their family, as he is the father of two of their great-grandchildren. This young man and I had several conversations during my first year in Perpignan, and he told me of the many difficulties he faced growing up in an impoverished family and being unable to find work because his Rom background is looked down upon by many potential employers, adding to the limited schooling he had as an adolescent. He emphasized the need for work among the young people of his community and how nearly impossible it is to find it. Problems of drugs and violence have found no solution.

The St. Jacques neighborhood seems to wake up about 4 p.m. when people congregate outside, children running everywhere, music being loudly played. Often, as I passed entrances into the homes, I glimpsed unlit, narrow staircases and wondered what life is like for this community, the hardships it must face daily, and yet the people stay. Family ties are very strong.

Among the Rom community, there is a palpable sense of community and togetherness. A young woman is never seen walking alone within St. Jacques or in the center of Perpignan; she is always part of a group of friends, often going into town to the discount clothing store, and they are closely surveilled. These young women are easily recognizable, almost always dressed in black with their long black hair piled high upon their heads.

The neighborhood is not clean and is considered unsafe by many. Trash and debris line the curbs. I had been warned many times not to walk through St. Jacques at any time of day or night, but the colors, sights and sounds were too intriguing for me to bypass — walls covered in colorful graffiti, people of all ages sitting outside on ragtag sofas and chairs, music playing, laundry hanging from front windows day or night. Not once, even late at night, however, did I ever feel threatened. One night, in fact, upon seeing my camera, two young Rom cousins came up to me and asked me about it, nothing more than that. We talked for a while about school, what they were studying and how much they enjoyed playing soccer. And then I walked safely home.

A Fourteenth-Century Lenten Tradition Relived Each Good Friday

If you are in Perpignan on the Friday before Easter, you will see a tradition that may take your breath away, dating back to 1416, when a Dominican priest, Vincent Ferrier, likened the suffering of Christ to the way criminals were treated at the time. One of his sermons on this topic resulted in the identity of executioners and condemned men being hidden to keep the condemned men from being identified by angry families, who might have taken justice into their own hands. Over the years, the procession of condemned men evolved into La Sanch, meaning “The Blood,” to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus, and for many years, it was forbidden by the Catholic Church as immoral, but La Sanch persisted and continues today.

Take the One-Euro Bus to Collioure

Perpignan boasts about being only 20 minutes from the Mediterranean coast, and particularly from the colorful Catalan town of Collioure, where anchovies are caught, processed and sold. It is easily reached by car, but you can also take the 1-euro bus, which will drop you off around the corner from the 14th-century Château Royal overlooking one of Collioure’s beaches.

Hikers can walk along the Sentier Littoral, the coastal trail, as I did one day in January and viewed the Mediterranean on one side and the Pyrenees on the other, with its snow-capped peak Canigou, 2,875 meters, almost 9,000 feet. By chance, one afternoon in January, the temperature reached 26 C, 79 F, much appreciated by someone like me from Maine or anyone looking for a bit of winter warmth.

The wines of Collioure are well known throughout France because of the unique dryness of the white wines made from grapes grown in dry, rocky soil on high, south-facing slopes overlooking the Mediterranean at an incline of 50%. Having driven past these slopes or hiked above them in the Albères Mountains, I have wondered how people manage to harvest the grapes on such steep land, but they do, and the delicious wines, whether white, red or rosé, are proof of their labor. So much about Roussillon is about color, and in Collioure, you will find homes painted in pastel colors — paint left over from the paint of the fishing boats — and a summer festival celebrating Catalan music and culture.

Perpignan — Definitely Worth a Few Days or More

Perpignan is a small city, one for all seasons, one from which there is no exodus in August as there is from Paris or from the Dordogne region, where large numbers of expats leave in January and February looking for warmer climes. Theatre, cinemas, wine tastings, open-air markets, and just a simple stroll through the city’s winding streets will always give you something to see and to do, something to enjoy, something new to learn, something to celebrate.

Getting There

Barcelona’s El Prat is the nearest international airport. From there, you can take the metro for 4 euros or a taxi for about 25 euros to Sants train station. The trip by train takes about 1 1/2 hours, and the train goes from Barcelona to Perpignan three times a day. Regular flights and trains leave from Paris as well.