France September 2017

Le
Weekend
SHORT BUT SWEET
CITY BREAKS
PERPIGNAN
French and Catalan influences, both ancient and modern, combine to
exciting effect in this Mediterranean city, says Robin Gauldie
Arrving in the capital of
Pyrénées-Orientales,
I immediately get the sense of
a city with a distinct cultural
identity. Road signs welcome me not only
to Perpignan, but to Perpinya. And not
just to Perpinya, but to Perpinya
– ‘Centre del Mon’ (Centre of the World).
There is no doubt that Perpignan is in
France. That question was settled in
1659, after centuries of Franco-Spanish
squabbling. But the city has a clear
Catalan identity. The border is only
35 kilometres away, and Barcelona is 650
kilometres nearer than Paris. The red and
yellow Catalan flag flies over the hôtel de
ville, alongside the tricolore and the
EU’s star-spangled banner. They dance
the sardana on Place de la Loge at
midsummer, when bonfires are lit from
torches carried from Canigou, the
mountain revered by Catalans. And the
street signs are bilingual.
Arriving at the Gare de Perpignan,
I do not perceive any of the ‘frenzied
energy’ that some writers have claimed
inspired Salvador Dalí (who lived most of
his life just across the Spanish frontier in
Cadaqués) to declare the city’s railway
station ‘the centre of the world’. In my
haste, I fail to notice the Dalíesque swirls
of colour that decorate its high ceilings.
It is not until I arrive on Place de
Catalogne that I am reminded of Dalí’s
links with Perpignan by a gleefully mad
statue of the artist, arms flung wide
to embrace the world. It is a copy of his
effigy above the station entrance.
Knowing a little about Perpignan’s
early history, I expect a historic centre
replete with medieval mansions and
churches, but it is the art-deco patrimony
that surprises.
The city has more than 1,000
outstanding villas and other buildings in
this style, says Philippe Latger, founder of
Perpignan Art Déco. The organisation
curated its first festival in 2015, which
looks like becoming an annual fixture.
Until the 1890s, Perpignan was
hemmed in by its medieval ramparts.
With a craze for urban renewal sweeping
France, they were demolished to let
the city grow.
And grow it did. Behind Dalí on
palm-lined Place de Catalogne is a grand
wedding cake of a building with huge
PHOTOGRAPHS: SERVICE PHOTO/VILLE DE PERPIGNAN; ROBIN GAULDIE;
G.DESCHAMPS; GETTY IMAGES/iSTOCKPHOTO
64 FRANCE MAGAZINE www.completefrance.com