Perpignan: A Guide

by Natalya Bichurina

Perpignan & Pyrénées Orientales

In the beginning of February I was asked by some Mundus students coming to Perpignan what there is to see in the region. I’ve just found my “guide” that I wrote for them and thought it might be of use for the Mundus students to come. Of course, these are my personal favourites only…

So here are my suggestions concerning places around Perpignan, i.e. in Pyrénées Orientales. I divided them into three parts: (1) places you can visit on public transport; (2) by bike (3) if you decide to rent a car.

1. If you go to the Office de tourisme (the one which is located in the Palais des Congrès) they can give you a so-called 'pass de tourisme' which gives you the right to use any bus in the Pyrénées Orientales for free for 8 days!

Some suggestions on where to go by bus:

On the seaside

Collioure (a very picturesque Mediterranean village which was loved by the impressionists...)

Other coastal villages are nice too, yet I'd say it's better to go there when it gets warm, so that you could swim: either in Argelès sur Mer (a long sand beach) or – my favourite one – Banyuls-sur-Mer (sand and rocky bays) – without mentioning Canet which is obviously the closest one (but which, personally, I didn’t like at all. It’s always so-o windy over there...)

In the mountains

In the Pyrenees you can go by bus up to Villefranche de Conflent (a nice old town – fortress, ville fortifiée, by a small mountain river, facing the Canigou; there are Grottes des Canalettes just near by and a fortress, Fort Libéria, which you can reach walking a path uphill – I never did this last part though). If you wish, in Villefranche you can take the Petit Train Jaune (a Catalan symbol) to go further - and higher – to the mountains. For example, you can visit Mont Louis, another fortress.

On the way to Villefranche (by bus as well as by car or train) there is Ille-sur-Têt with very beautiful rocks of an amazing shape (4 million years old geological formations).

Note: You can go to all these places by train as well yet the Tourist Pass doesn’t work for the trains (***generally it is only after a strike on the railroad that the controllers come:)

Also, as far as mountains are concerned, if you're interested in alpine skiing, the University sports society should be organising day trips providing transportation and ski pass for a good price.

2. You can rent a bike at Parking Arago: with your student card it will be 15 euros for 3 months. A nice place to go just near Perpignan is Villeneuve de la Raho: there is a lake there with a bicycle path around it, with tables etc. Personally, I would go there very often to study sitting in the fresh air by the lake – and to have a walk of cause. You should exit from the city by the path which goes by le Parc des Sports (near the Uni), then just go ahead through the fields and when you reach Villeneuve de la Raho you'll have to turn right (there is a road sign). It's really close: no more than some 15-20 minutes from the Canigou residents. There are other bicycle paths too, yet not too many. I tried to go to Canet by bike but I didn't really like the road...

3. In the Pyrenees there are a lot of places to see: beautiful landscape, abbeys etc. Yet, most of them are not reachable by public transport. You can rent a car and visit them: for example, Abbaye St Martin du Canigou, situated on the Canigou, a Catalan sacred mountain (you'll have to walk uphill 1,5 km but it's really nice; monks, both men and women, still live there and one of them will show you around), Prieuré de Serrabone etc. – to mention but few.

There is also a village that, personally, I adore: Castelnou, a medieval village, isolated, surrounded by the mountains, with stony streets and houses and a castle.... It is very close to Perpignan (some 20-30 min driving), right after Thuir. By the way, you can go to Thuir by bus too – yet, there is no transport afterwards (taxi/bike/walk could be the options, yet the easiest one – and the cheapest I suppose - is obviously to rent a car, say, for a weekend, and visit all these places).

If you wish to go further, beyond the Pyrénées Orientales there are Carcassonne, Toulouse, Montpellier, Nîmes etc. in France; Barcelona, Girona in Spain. There is also Andorra, which is good for alpine skiing or buying some duty-free stuff, yet apart from that I don't really know what one would be doing there...

A tip: in the Office de Tourisme there is a couple of booklets – a big one with various itineraries which I found useful (called smth like Guide des itineraries en terre catalane), and a small one, looking exactly the same, which actually gives you discount when you visit the tourist spots (normally there is a student discount too, so sometimes the first discount is bigger, sometimes the second one).

In Perpi

Curiosities

Obviously, Palais des rois de Majorque (there is a nice park in front of it with a view on the city and this is free –yet it's not free in summer; if you wish to visit the interiors, you'll have to buy a ticket; there is a student discount)

Castillet (a museum of Catalan culture). During La nuit des musées the entry to all the museums is free of charge:) You can climb to the top of Castillet and have a view of Perpignan (we did it in the midnight of that Nuit des musées, for free). Apart from that view, I didn’t find there was anything special…

Bars

El Tio Pepe seems to be the most popular among the students; the Irish pub O'Shannon is another popular one. We also went to a place called something like Che, which was quite nice. Other names I don't remember, we would just walk from one place to another...

Bars and places for eating out are mostly near La Place de la Loge.