Breathe
Take you by the heart, the senses, swim, dive, float ...
Walk, madly, in the hollow of creeks, on the hills, in the vineyards or as simple visitors with their noses in the air, along the paths and alleys.
Let yourself be carried away by the dream of the present moment, and embrace these scenes. Feel your belonging to the Earth.
Space...
Everything is there in front of you, everything that our Mother Earth, Alma Mater, offers, the mountain behind your back, the immensity of the sea and the sky, the trees and the forest, the plains, the rivers, the creeks and the rocky cliffs.
COLLIOURE
“Collioure has been nicknamed the“ jewel of the Côte Vermeille ”. A title that is not usurped! With the curious bell tower-lighthouse of its church at the water's edge, its royal castle, its alleys with colorful houses and boats moored in its port, Collioure has a crazy charm.
We walk there with happiness, along its small pebble beach, to the end of the jetty. After a visit to the royal castle, 700 years old and dominating the port, we go to the Church of Our Lady of the Angels (17th century), a true emblem of the city, whose bell tower is nothing short of other than the old port lighthouse! Right next door, the Mouré district seduces with its ocher and pink houses, its flowered balconies, its narrow streets paved with pebbles. A fireworks display of colors, which conquered Matisse and the wild beasts at the start of the 20th century. The tourist office has also set up a path of Fauvism, with about twenty reproductions placed at the same place where the painters put their easels. To have a bird's eye view of Collioure, climb to Fort Saint-Elme (30 min walk). From up there, a breathtaking 360 ° panorama of the city and the sea! »Extract from Routard.
AN ARTIST'S VILLAGE
In the 19th century, painters and photographers were already coming.
In the summer of 1905, Henri Matisse came to paint in Collioure, where, together with André Derain, he created fauvism. A tour of the city, Le Chemin du fauvisme, allows you to find the places where their works were produced thanks to reproductions of paintings placed in the very places where Matisse and Derain once placed their easels34.
Other painters will follow, notably Albert Marquet, Juan Gris, Georges Braque, Jean Peské, Raoul Dufy, Foujita, Othon Friesz, Paul Signac, Willy Mucha, Henri Martin and his son Claude-René Martin, Henri Vergé-Sarrat, Édouard Pignon , Pierre Jutand, Pierre Boudet, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Philippe Jamin ...
Collioure specialties
Many wines are produced there: AOC Collioure (in red, white and rosé), AOC Grand Roussillon, Muscat de Rivesaltes, Banyuls grand cru and IGP Côte Vermeille28.
Of the many salting and selling companies of Collioure anchovies , a local specialty, established in the city until the middle of the last century, only two still exist: Roque Anchovies and Desclaux Anchovies.
Places and monuments
Notre-Dame-des-Anges Church (Classified MH (1923)): Built between 1684 and 1691 in a southern Gothic style. It is, with its famous bell tower, a former medieval lighthouse, practically surrounded by the sea on its three sides;
Saint-Vincent Chapel: Built in 1701
The Royal castle
The modern art museum
The path of fauvism
Fort St Elme
Hermitage of Notre-Dame-de-Consolation, adjoining a chapel, religious first, secular after the revolution
The mill
around...
