Bird's eye view (again)

Up for breakfast reasonably early, the four of us (P, M, S and I) headed into Perpignan on the bus (see yesterday's backblip for context). First stop the Castillet, icon of Perpignan. P and M don't know Perpignan and were immediately seduced by the little tourist train to get an overview of the town -- they always take them when available. We left them to it and went into the museum in the Castillet itself. S immediately flummoxed the woman at the desk by speaking to her in Catalan. He later tried it with two other members of staff with the same result. Shame on them, he concluded. This is the view down to the Café de la Poste from the top of the tower. Sadly, Canigou was wreathed in cloud, so no view of it.

The museum didn't take long, and S's next mission was to go to the Catalan bookshop (where he was able to have a conversation in Catalan). I wasn't up for this, so I walked over to the Hotel Pams, home of the family who made a fortune from Job cigarette papers. I've been there before, but it's free to enter and it's a lovely space with a beautiful garden, full of abundant foliage and flowers (see spare blip).

I thought I'd missed Visa pour l'Image, the massive photojournalism exhibition that takes place annually in Perpignan, but it turned out that part of it was still on display in the Hotel. When I arrived, it was rammed with a school group and no-one else was allowed to enter, but on my way out I met them leaving, so I had a look. I really liked what I saw, though "like" seems the wrong word given the subject. Since 2015, Pierre Faure has been working on a project he calls La France Périphérique, about the "left behind" parts of France, small towns and rural areas. The people he visits are suffering terrible poverty and social exclusion, but he photographs them and their surroundings with empathy and sensitivity. Some of the photos are stunning -- take a look. It's not obvious, but you can scroll through the photos by clicking on the nearly invisible right arrow on the photo at the top of the page (they had captions in the exhibition giving more context).  So pleased I visited it.

We all met up at the cafe next to the Castillet, and decided to get a light lunch. My first thought was Le Figuier, the lovely tapas place I went to with Lesley last year, only five minutes' walk away. Sadly they turned out to be closed for holidays, reopening ... tomorrow. We ended up at a salad place nearby, where you got a massive salad bowl and could choose what to put into it from a wide range of ingredients and dressings. It was very copious and we spent a long time eating it and chatting in the sunshine, P showing us photos of their recent trip to Alsace. So long that we missed the bus we'd intended to catch. But it didn't matter -- we had a leisurely stroll around the streets on the way to the bus stop.

Back at the house, R and A had been busy gardening. We said our goodbyes and headed home. It's been a really nice short break. I rather like the idea of going somewhere not far from home for a couple of days. There are a few more photos clicking right from here.