Collioure

A half hour by train from Perpignan to the South is a sleepy seaside village of Collioure. A fishing village, it is painted with bright pastel colors. It was here in 1905 that the French painter, Henri Matisse spent some time here and started putting bright colors into his work after seeing the wonderful colors of Collioure. Other artists started coming here and started experimenting with bright colors and the 'fauvism' movement in art was started. Today Collioure is still a sleepy town of art galleries and tourists. A lot of artists still come here to paint. That day we would see a few working at their easels. The train dropped us off at the station and we walked a few meters to the village. It is so small but we took our time, we took pictures and then we got waylaid by shopping. How can one resists?

Narrow alleys and traffic free alleys.

Just delivery vehicles.

It is pretty and so laid back. There's nothing to do here but wander into the shops, walked on the waterfront, visit the old church tower and the citadel and watch the fishing boats go out or come back.

I love the pastry shops in France. They look so good and they are good to eat.

We would have reached the water front sooner but we had to do some shopping, an hour later and a few hundred euros poorer, we finally made the next few steps to the water front. This was a home decor store, we had to buy some stuff to bring home.

A shop selling wine from the region. We don't drink which is a pity because they say the wines are great.

I was told it's crowded in summer. We are here in September and there were only a sprinkling of visitors.

Even their ice cream have an attitude, they are this bright swirls of color.

I know you would like to know what's on the menu. This was a trip about places, not food. We didn't eat here, we were too absorbed in the scenery and just had breakfast. We didn't have the money or the time. We would leave to go back to Perpignan to take a bus up the mountains to the Pyrenees. We ate some stuff at a cafe in front of the train station in Perpignan. I wish we could talk about food, maybe next trip.

I wish I bought a pair of espadrilles.