To Italy and Back: Gruissan to Perpignan

Today we travelled south towards the Spanish border to Perpignan, home town of the Catalan Dragons Super League Team. As we had all day to travel 78 kms we thought we’d do a scenic trip – which made me happy as there were no mountain ranges between the two towns.

Bages
We had some coffee at this petite village and to all appearances it was a fairly typical town – houses perched on steep cliffs, narrow roads snaking up the hill side, a church on top of the hill, a boules (petanque) court, fishing boats and so on but then we saw it – the trophy door. This guy obviously prefers to hunt boars – not sure if there are other hooves hidden in the display.

The Journey
Avoiding the main roads we took the coast road through industrial areas, tourist resorts and fishing villages. John insisted that there were Naturist beaches that we needed to visit but as we had so long to travel we did not stop.

There are etangs along the coast here. There is no exact English translation but they are shallow, salt water lakes next to the ocean connected by small channel/s. Sometimes we drove with the ocean on one side and an etang on the other.

We came across a small inlet that had makeshift restaurants along

both sides of the water way – fishing boats backed onto the restaurants. So fresh. There are oyster farms EVERYWHERE – yummy.

Perpignan
We got to Perpignan in time to book into our hotel. The young receptionist greeted us with a cool drink of sangria (odd) and told us of her time in Australia at Tibooburra of all places. I’m sure none of the people we are sending this travel diary to have ever been there. We have – it is very remote with a population of about 200. She loved it – apparently a lot of foreign backpackers work there and the lifestyle is completely different. It is.

Brutus Gilbert Stadium
We walked to the stadium and were met by a mob of Huddersfield fans drinking at a pub across from the stadium. As they were already singing the team song we knew we were in for an interesting evening. As Rugby League supporters know, the English Super League takes Australian players nearing retirement or those that are too problemsome to get a job in the NRL. Kristian Inu and Greg Bird

are in the current team; Willy Mason and Todd Carney played for them previously.

It was an interesting event – yummy fast food, reusable beer cups and a Catalan band including traditional bagpipes. The Catalan anthem was played and the local team names were displayed on the big screen - no anthem or recognition for the visitors. Huddersfield flogged them.

Next: To Italy and Back - Perpignan to Roquebrune-Cap-Martin