It is also French Catalonia at its finest. It is a great little city in which you can spend the morning in the Pyrenees and the afternoon on the beach. The train ride to Perpignan is also incredibly beautiful with the mountains to the west of you as you ride through lakes, literally through two lakes, and along the sea.
Once we arrived we took a cafe as we all were exhausted. After some strong coffee we met up with our couchsurfing host Juliette and had lunch at her house. She was a very nice and helpful host, but a little shy. She had a cute house just outside the old part of Perpignan. That night we also got to have dinner with Juliette and her friend Sandie, who splits her time between Dijon and Nimes and was visiting her folks in Perpignan, which was a nice evening full of conversation about travel and life.
As for the town of Perpignan, I liked it. There is not too much to do there but it felt like a town where real people live their lives even with all the tourists passing through. Perpignan would make for a great place to stay while making day trips around the area, which is what we did our second day there. On the 9th, we decided to take a break from the beach and visit the Pyrenees. We took a 1 euro bus ride to the town of Villefranch-de-Conflent.
It is an UNESCO site, which means it is a protected historical site. Another UNESCO site is the whole town of Bruges in Belgium. Villefranch was a nice village but I can safely say we spent too much time there. We were going to take this little yellow train down the canyon to other towns, but the rail tracks were being repaired. We did have a nice short hike up to the fort of the town where we each drank a glass of rose and took in the beautiful scenery. That night we had a kebab for dinner, which is always delicious.
All in all, Perpignan was a nice place to catch up on some much needed sleep and rest.
Tomorrow we head to Barcelona!! I really liked Barcelona and all of the adventures we had there minus a few. :)!
Molly
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