Unlike yesterday’s surprisingly fine day, it looks like we’re only getting a few hours to work with today before rain arrives in the early afternoon. While we wait for dawn to arrive we focus on route and restaurant selection. We’ve got agreement on both fronts: we’ll both head to our nearest neighbor Port-Vendres this morning, also stopping by Collioure’s windmill and Fort Saint-Elme for closer looks before making it back in time for lunch at highly rated Le Jardin de Collioure, the one restaurant our hosts said when we checked in that we should be sure to give a try. In addition, I plan to make it out to the tip of Cape Béar to see its lighthouse again, a feature we biked out to the last time we stayed in Collioure seven years ago.
First though, a few photos that got missed yesterday because I keep forgetting to look at what’s on my phone:
We ate under the great bull again last night. This time though sitting right beneath him I noticed what I missed before, that his pattern is from posters of bullfights.
My ride is considerably less ambitious than Rachael’s walk, adding up to barely twelve miles when I start out. That’s not much longer than Rachael plans to cover on foot, but I don’t accomplish even that much and fail on reaching three of my four targets. It starts when I’m barely out of town with my failure to make it up to the windmill. The route I have plotted out follows a small road behind town up to the mill, but when I get there I find that my ‘road’ is actually a rough gravel track that winds steeply up through a terraced olive grove. So scratch that goal - I’ll wait and look at Rachael’s photos later for this one.
We’ve got different conditions again today - reason enough to slip in another photo of Collioure’s waterfront as I bike past it.
CJ HornYour pictures are wonderful. Sharron and I do virtual puzzles on jigsawexplorer.com and use our own pictures (not public). This one will be perfect! Thanks! Reply to this comment 2 weeks ago
CJ HornTo Scott AndersonSharron did come to the church on 6-8-68 in sandles. Good memory! Trying to respond to a recent email about mousse but reply email will not go thru… sigh. Reply to this comment 2 weeks ago
It’s only about two miles to Port-Vendres following the main coast road as I do. Traffic isn’t bad this morning, and on the way I stop to admire a colorful slate or schist road cut.
With only twelve miles to cover in four hours, I’ve got all the time in the world this morning. I spend a good chunk of it on the Port-Vendres waterfront, admiring the look and feel of what’s obviously an active fishing and shipping port. At one point we planned on staying here instead of Collioure, and from what I see this morning it would have been a good choice too. I suspect if it weren’t a mere two miles from its neighbor it would see considerably more tourist traffic than it does.
Port-Vendres, just around a small headland from Collioure, has a much different character from its neighbor.
I finally break away from the waterfront and head out to the lighthouse at the tip of Cape Béar, the small headland on the west side of the bay. The next few miles are a gradual climb up an all but deserted rough-surfaced road that must exist to service the lighthouse at the end. Not a car passes me on the way up, but I do pass another bike or two and a number of walkers. If we’d stayed in Port-Vendres instead this would have made a great hike for Rachael.
This is Béar Redoubt, guarding this side of the harbor.
I get a nice view back at Port-Vendres from the cape. At the top of the ridge behind the town is Fort Saint Elme, the one Rachael and I both plan to stop by today.
I get impressive views up and down the coast when I reach the crown of the cape, and then after a short descent down the seaward side I come to the beautiful lighthouse. It has a rosy coloring that looks like it was built from the same material that sourced the capitals in the cloister I saw yesterday.
The view west to the next town over, Banyuls-sur-Mer.
Panning back for a wider view. Zooming in on the tip of its opposite headland you can see the tips of the next several headlands also and imagine Cerbere and Portbou tucked in between them.
Cape Béar lighthouse. I took the shot from this spot so the tile roof of the building in the foreground would just block out a utility van parked in front of the lighthouse. When I did though, I was surprised by the bird in the lower left of the frame.
New bird! #287: Blue rock-thrush. I thought I was seeing something different by its long, slender bill. From a distance it almost looks like a woodpecker.
Scott AndersonTo Bob KoreisIt was taken as shown, with the bird and I in the same positions. I was lucky to get such a clarifying shot. I’m gradually getting better at removing the shake when I press the shutter. Reply to this comment 2 weeks ago
The lighthouse is at the end of the service road, so there’s nowhere else to go next but back the way I came. After dropping back through Port-Vendres again I start climbing up through it into the hills heading for Fort Saint-Elme. But I never get there, and I don’t make it back for lunch at Le Jardin de Collioure either. Two things get in the way. First, my ride up toward the fort turns to crap - or rather it turns into a steep two block long staircase, one I can’t find a way past as I huff my way up the very steep nearby streets before deciding this is another spot where I’ll just need to wait for Rachael’s photos later. If I had gotten up to see it though, it would look like this:
So that’s one thing. The other is that as I’m dropping back toward the waterfront again I see on the Garmin that Rachael’s less than half a mile away, still rounding the headland between here and Collioure. It makes me wonder if she’ll still have time to make it up to the fort and back in time for lunch, so I give her a call. And then I call her again about ten minutes later, and then finally I start making my way through the steep alleys east of the port until I finally hook up with her coming around a corner.
But that’s a story for a separate post.
Rachael in Port-Vendres, with a somewhat stunned look on her face.
