Hello from Collioure on the Mediterranean, quite close to the Spanish border! The Michelin guide calls it "an extremely attractive small town on the Cote Vermeille, against the backdrop of the foothills of the Albères range ..." The Impressionists loved this place and came here in droves to paint it -- Derain, Braque, Orthon, Matisse, Picasso, and others. There is a Chemin de Fauvisme you can follow, checking out reproductions of the famous paintings and comparing them to the actual view. Pretty cool! Here and there they set up actual picture frames so you can view the landscape through them and imagine yourself actually composing a masterpiece yourself, as you can see Steve dreaming of doing below ...
(N.B.: Steve would like you to know, though it is probably already clear, that he has no editorial control over this blog.)
Below is the Collioure jetty (extending to Steve's left in the picture above):
And below is the harbor and the Chateau Royale (just to the right of the sailboat), which was the summer residence of the kings of Majorca in the 13-14th century before being taken over by the kings of Aragon...
We spent the better part of a Saturday in Collioure, then returned to our Toulouse apartment for the night (about a 2-3 hour drive). The next day, we drove north to an amazing medieval village, Cordes-sur-Ciel, which one hikes up into from a lower town. It is perched on top of a small mountain and from a distance looks a little like a landlocked Mt. St. Michel. During the Albigensian Crusade in 1222, the Count of Toulouse decided to build himself a fortified city here, which "rapidly became a favorite haunt of (Cathar) heretics, and the Inquisition found rich pickings here ..." Now it is filled with the studios of craftsmen and artists, most of which were shut when we visited (very off-season). In the summer, apparently, the place is overrun with visitors, but it was hauntingly empty in late January, as if we'd just missed the Inquisitors...
Unfortunately, I do not have a good picture of the effect from a distance, but here are a couple within the town itself, filled with Gothic architecture from the 13th-14th century:
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