Every cloud has a silver lining!

(The Castillet, the only remaining tower, housing one of the main gates to the former walled city of Perpignan. This building has become a symbol of the modern city)

Being back home in England after a summer spent in the south of France comes as a bit of a shock! Today the skies have been overcast, the wind has been blowing and the temperature is so different from what I was experiencing this time last week! Still, holidays cannot last for ever, nor can the summer, and I know that I am more fortunate than many in having been able to spend some sixteen weeks at our house in Canet-en-Roussillon this year.

Most summers spent down by the Mediterranean in the past have been long hot summers with the occasional storm, helping to clear the overpowering heat and bringing a little fresher air! Not so this summer. Don’t get me wrong, we have had some beautiful days in June, July and August, and one day in August the temperature reached 37 degrees Centigrade. However, September was a different story. One day sunny, another day wet, followed by wind and much lower temperatures. No two days were the same, until just before we came home, and then the weather settled!

So days lazing around the pool or going to the beach were limited, outdoor eating in the evenings was curtailed. We had to find other things to do, things that I have described in my recent posts, and you may have read them here. Certainly my days looking around museums, art galleries and photojournalism exhibitions in Perpignan when the Mediterranean sun was hidden by clouds meant that I discovered beautiful buildings and hidden parts of the city that I never knew existed. Yes, every cloud does indeed have a silver lining! So, as a last look at the south of France for this year, allow me to share some of those places with you.

(The Castillet, on a brighter day, with the roofs of the old city, and the Cathedral bell tower, left of centre. I took this photo from the recently opened roof terrace café at the French department store, Galeries Lafayette)

(Just inside the old city walls behind the Castillet, one of the many squares with Le Grand Café de la Poste. This ancient entry to the city is called La Porte Notre-Dame, and you can see the statue of Our Lady above the arch)

(Another square in the old city – La Place de la Révolution Française. The steps on the left lead to the former Dominican Convent which housed part of the recent Photojournalism Festival, which was very busy on the day we visited, due in part to the bad weather)

(The old city is full of narrow pedestrian streets. This is the rue des Cardeurs)

(After a very heavy shower, the sun came out and shone on these lovely old apartments in La Place Hyacinth Rigaud, lighting up the early evening)

(One of the beautifully restored salons inside L’Hôtel de Lazerme, which is now part of the city art gallery, and where Picasso stayed when he visited Perpignan)

(The central atrium of the opulent Hôtel Pams, built by Pierre Bardou, one of the founders of the JOB cigarette paper company, and then transformed  in the 1890s into an elegant mansion by his son-in-law Jules Pams, who was a Senator – or member of the upper house of Parliament – for the Perpignan region. It now belongs to the city)

(Believe it or not, this is the garden just off the first floor of the Hôtel Pams in what I think is now one of the less salubrious parts of the city. Stepping into this garden with its olive trees and a banana tree, is like stepping into another world)

(The narrow city streets are often very dark, and behind some of the huge wooden doors you often find beautiful little courtyards. This one, in the rue de Mailly, housed an excellent coffee shop which we visited on more than one occasion)

(This wonderful stairway took us up into the former Jewish quarter of the city, and to an area behind the cathedral and the Campo Santo, a fourteenth century cloister cemetery, and the massive Convent of the Minimes, which is now an exhibition space)

(And so we leave the South of France, but we leave it on a sunny day with one of my favourite views of Perpignan – the illuminated fountains which play throughout the day and early evening between Cours Palmarole and Boulevard Wilson)

Au revoir Perpignan, et Canet-en-Roussillon. À bientôt!