Monday, July 25, 2016

Collioure: A delightful seaside town

We arrived in Port Vendres, our last port in France which is just near the Spanish border and went straight to Collioure, the next little town.  It is a wonderful place, a much smaller port but with good beaches right in the town.

It is an ideal town for walking and we walked around the beachfronts and the much quieter laneways with small shops and restaurants everywhere.  We visited the Notre Dame Des Anges with its waterfront location and toured the Chateau Royal, which was built on Roman foundations and added to over the centuries.  It provided stunning views over the bays and harbours and housed several interesting art exhibitions.


                                                             The Chateau Royal

                                   
                                                       Traditional boats in the harbour


                                              The Notre Dame Des Anges next to the beach


                                              View over the bay from the Chateau Royal


We are very close to Spain and the food and influences are Catalan.  It would be a great place to spend a relaxing week.  We were sorry to leave but took the route back via Fort St. Elme.  The road was extremely narrow with grapevines growing up to the edge of the road.  When we reached the fort, there were wonderful views back down to Collioure.  It was downhill back to Port Vendres and as we came down, we could see our yacht in the harbour.  We would love more time to explore both towns but we disembark tomorrow morning in Barcelona so we are about to start packing.


                                                  The fort with grape vines in front



                                                               Fort Saint Elme



                                         View back over Collioure from the fort


Next blog will be from Brussels.

1 comment:

Amanda said...

That looks like such a nice spot to stop! I bet you want to spend weeks in places like this :)