Collioure, the bay that kings and painters both claimed

A bay fought over since the 7th century

The earliest written trace of the Royal Castle dates to a siege in 672, led by the King of Toledo: Collioure was already contested enough to be fought over. But it's from the 13th century that the site takes its current shape: the Kings of Mallorca made it their summer residence, building fortifications around Visigothic-era remains that were reinforced and thickened all the way through the 17th century. Walk the ramparts today and you're standing on four centuries of Catalan power that predate French rule entirely.

The fortress-town didn't stop at the castle. Fort Saint-Elme, on the heights above, began as a tower built by the Moors in the 8th century, was redrawn into its star shape by engineer Benedetto de Ravenna between 1538 and 1552 and completed by Vauban's engineers from 1680 onward. Fort Dugommier, much later (1844–1852), belongs to an entirely different generation of coastal defense: it was already falling into ruin by the end of the 19th century, the nature of the threat having shifted. Three forts, three centuries, one same logic: Collioure has always been a door that needed locking.

The convent quarter tells a different story, more religious than military. The former Dominican convent was founded in 1275, one of three houses the order established in Roussillon; its church, reworked between 1452 and 1457, is the only part still standing: the cloister itself is gone. Deconsecrated during the Revolution, the building then served as a military warehouse until 1925, before finding a cultural life again: its cellar now displays the 14th-century cloister arcades, reinstalled in the museum garden.

And then there's the harbour bell tower, the one everyone photographs without necessarily knowing why it's cylindrical. The Notre-Dame-des-Anges church was built at the port entrance and its tower is thought to have served as a lighthouse before becoming a bell tower: the ground-floor masonry may date back to the 13th century, around the time the port itself was created, circa 1275. The church proper was only attached to it in the 17th century. That detail, a lighthouse recycled into a bell tower, sums up Collioure rather well: nothing here gets thrown away, everything gets layered on top of the last thing.

The light that invented Fauvism

In the summer of 1905, Henri Matisse and André Derain settled in Collioure to paint. What they brought back, pure, unmixed colour, light treated as a subject in its own right, shocked the Paris Salon d'Automne so badly that one critic dubbed them "fauves," wild beasts. The Fauvist movement was born and it was born in Collioure. The Chemin du Fauvisme, an open-air trail, now displays around twenty reproductions at the exact spots where the two painters set up their easels: you can literally hold the canvas up against the view.

The town never stopped attracting painters after that. The Mouré quarter, with its steep lanes, colourful fishermen's houses and galleries (Max Rovira, Riere), remains the heart of that artistic vein. The Maison du Fauvisme and the Musée d'Art Moderne, Fonds Peské carry the subject forward on the institutional side, while the Vitrine sur le Fauvisme runs guided walks for anyone who wants more than a stroll.

Collioure also carries a heavier memory. In February 1939, the Spanish poet Antonio Machado crossed the border with his mother, fleeing Franco's victory and died a few weeks later at the Quintana guesthouse, worn down by the exodus. His tomb, in the old cemetery, is still a literary pilgrimage site today, often covered in poems and flowers left by Spanish visitors. The Espace Antonio Machado, set up in the former guesthouse, tells that chapter of the Retirada, the same exodus that filled, a little further north, the internment camps of Argelès-sur-Mer.

On the festival calendar, things stay busy: the Piano Festival in late June, the Nuit de la Saint-Jean on 23 June with its traditional bonfires and sardanes and above all the Chapelle Saint-Vincent festival in mid-August, a procession and fireworks around the tiny chapel perched on its rock at the entrance to the bay: probably one of the most photographed backdrops in Roussillon.

Between ramparts, coves and vineyards

Starting with the Royal Castle is the obvious move: the Explora room and the rampart walk give an overview of the bay that helps make sense of everything else. From there, the Chemin des Douaniers (coastal path) follows the cliffs toward Port-Vendres, weaving between coves and schist steps (bring proper shoes: it climbs). For walkers who want to go further, a guided hike leads up to Fort Saint-Elme, on the heights, with an open view over the whole Côte Vermeille.

For the water, three beaches share the centre, Port d'Avall, Boramar and Saint-Vincent, plus the small Anse de la Balette, an intimate cove reached via a paved coastal path, with a view back over the bay. The Club Nautique de Collioure rents kayaks and sailboats year-round and the Réserve Naturelle Marine de Cerbère-Banyuls, just south, opens up snorkelling and responsible diving over one of the richest seabeds in the French Mediterranean.

Finally, Collioure is as much a wine town as a sea town: the Randonnée vigneronne climbs through dry-stone terraces to a tasting and the Ermitage Notre-Dame de Consolation, reached by a gentle walk through the vines, offers a break away from the harbour crowds. For sunset, the viewpoint at Fort Saint-Elme or the one at Voramar remain the safest bets: arrive thirty minutes before the advertised hour in summer.