We took a day out from Le Brasilia to visit the small town of Le Barcares just 8 miles north of Canet en Roussillon. It was market day in Le Barcares and that is as good a reason as any to visit somewhere in France. We’d have a good wander around the market and then take brunch by the sea.
Le Barcares has the unenviable reputation of being amongst the first of the towns and villages along this stretch of the coast to fully embrace tourism at the expense of it’s fishing interests. Some investors moved in during the 1960’s with ideas to develop a leisure complex to the north of the town. They planted an old cruise liner (the Lydia) on the beach near the port (which they later fitted out as a nightclub, restaurant and casino) and built a promenade connecting the Lydia to Port Le Bacares (which became known as the Allee des Arts after the investors arranged for various artists to create an open air museum of contemporary art along it’s length). It was an ambitious, cutting edge project but it was well received and for many years was successful. Over time, however, interest waned; successive owners failed to maintain the liner and; by the 1980’s Lydia had fallen into disuse. The ship and the promenade lay derelict until 2011 when the local council bought it for a million Euros with a view to revitalising the complex by turning it into a cultural attraction.
The liner has since been refurbished. A small museum and art gallery has been installed and part of the ship is set aside for exhibitions and events. The exhibits along the promenade, which originally comprised a series of monumental sculptures (such as the Soleilonautes – see below), have been added to by a street art collection fashioned out of and/or on old shipping containers. In addition, some nearby land owned by the council was reserved for the creation of a new initiative, the Traditional Fishermen’s Village. This consists of a small collection of fishing boats and thatched wooden cottages and serves as a tribute to the people who first settled this area. I like that idea.
The Le Barcares Council are to be commended for trying to make the best of a truly awful situation but, with the exception of the Fishermen’s Village, I’m not sure their plans will work. I hope I’m wrong but the realities are that (a) the ship is very much under utilised and will be prohibitively expensive to maintain (especially with recent Trip Advisor reviews proving very negative) and (b) the sculptures and street art collection are, to my mind, unimpressive and already looking tired. I think too that these exhibits, especially the more abstract ones like the Soleilonautes (8 wooden totem poles arranged in a circle), would benefit from an explanatory plaque. I like to know what I am looking at and what was in the artist’s mind at the time. Fingers crossed that it all comes good because the council are at least trying.
Moving on. We parked the Van on a large motorhome aire near old port (now a marina) – thanks again to the council for such a facility – and walked into town along Rue Magellan. The view across the marina entrance towards the Pyrenees was beautiful. Pic de Canigou, once thought to be the tallest mountain in the Pyrenees at 2,748 metres (it’s not even close; that honour goes to Aneto at 3,404 metres), looked fantastic with it’s tops covered in snow.We were so impressed with that view that we almost missed out on the Farmer’s Village.
The farmer’s market in Le Barcares is not the biggest market we have seen in France and it certainly didn’t have the variety of Bar sur Seine in Grand Est but it was a fair size and a real joy to wander. Vanya particularly liked it, buying a new top and a grape vine. Yes, a grape vine. I very much liked some oil paintings on sheets of tin of all things but resisted the urge to buy. I was going to have my hands full walking back to the Van with Nala and a 20 year old Muscat grape vine.
I’ll let the pictures do the talking…
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… but that Muscat vine on the table!?!