Perpignan

This is La Mas Bresson, a former stable that will be our home for the next three days. As you can see, it’s been improved. We share it with a German couple and a couple of Canadians from Montreal.

After settling in, we drove to an auberge a few kilometers away for dinner. A lot of the cooking was done over coals, including racks of snails. You can just make them out in the second photo if you look carefully. No, we did not eat them.

We drove into Perpignan the next morning and parked our walnut-sized car in an underground parking lot made for peanut-sized vehicles. Not relaxing, but possible.

The big event in town was an international convention of photojournalists. We saw hundreds of beautifully composed shots of interesting, sometimes horrifying, subjects. You don’t go to this kind of exhibition to be uplifted.

You may be surprised to see that I didn’t take photos of the photos. I could have, but it seemed somehow wrong since the photographer may have risked his/her life to get the shot.

But let’s start at the beginning. After passing this exceptional Beaux-Arts facade, we visited a small museum in a tower of the old city wall.

The museum holds items of local interest, like this model of a Catalonian fishing boat.

These look like clarinets, but are double reed, like an oboe or bassoon.

Notice how thick the walls are.

We climbed to the top of the tower for a view of the city. It’s so dense, that about all we learned is that Perpignan favors tile roofs. I did see one nicely renovated building that I assume holds apartments.

This is the Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste. I was expecting one more pretty nice church. Wait ‘till you see what we found inside.

Finally, a little bit about the photojournalists. The organization is Visa, hence all the banners around town. Exhibitions were in several buildings and a few outdoor spaces.

This is a display of a National Geographic photographer’s story on elephants.

After the exhibition, we wandered about looking for a restaurant still serving lunch. We failed.

“Of course the apartment is stable, Monsieur. As stable as the day is long.”