Sunday 25 Sept: Citadel, museums and churches in Perpignan
Sunday I had set aside a day to Perpignan visit. This trip, I try to set aside time to visit at least a few monuments in the larger cities I pass. By car, you usually blast past those on your way to your final destination. This trip I have no real final destination, just muddling along from day to day.
Perpignan is a typical southern old town with many narrow streets and alleys. I wanted to start with the furthest away monument, the Spanish citadel, and from there descend back to the city centre. The first monument I came across on my way to the citadel was the Eglise Saint-Matthieu. Mass had just been done, so I was able to poke my nose in.
Shortly afterwards, I passed the Centre d'Art Contemporain Walter Benjamin, a museum I did not find on the tourist city map. Reason enough to check it out. It was running a free exhibition by East German photographer Andrej Pirrwitz: Les couleurs du silence. Pirrwitz lived through the decline of communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall, saw how the West slipped into overindulgent individualistic materialism and how that led to the climate crisis that now threatens the whole of our planet. In response to the imminent demise of the world, he photographs dilapidated, run-down factories in which symbolic remnants of our hedonistic, consumerist culture can still be found, such as empty bottles or rubbish, for example.
After 15 minutes of further walking, I found myself in front of the imposing rampart wall of the Spanish Citadel. In the mid-16th century, the Spanish king Philip II ordered that around the old palace of the kings of Majorca build, a kingdom that lasted from 1276 to 1349 and that Majorca and the Catalan Pyrenees included. Except for a few chairs, the imposing palace was no longer furnished. There is a permanent exhibition of the history of typical Catalan garnet jewellery and a temporary photo exhibition running. From the tower you have a fantastic view of the whole city, the pic du Canigou and the Pyrenees.
After the Citadel, I walked to the Hyacinthe Rigaud museum, which has a rich collection of 20th-century and Gothic/Baroque art by artists who had a connection with Perpignan or Occitania.
This included a room with works by Raoul Dufy, who fled Nice when Italy declared war on France. Perpignan was a refuge for many because it was not occupied by the Germans during war. Also Picasso came to revive himself here from 1953 to 1955 after he was killed due to the Franquism could not return to Catalonia. Aristide Maillol learned Jean Matisse, son of, sculpting in this region.
After this rather large collection with which I spent a long time, there followed a floor of beautiful Baroque and Gothic works. Here I wandered through more quickly, although the quality of the works to my senses exceeded that of artworks I had seen in other cities.
Last but not least there was a temporary exhibition of George-Daniel de Monfreid, a contemporary and close friend of Gaugin, which clearly had an influence on his works. De Monfreid represented Gaugin in Paris during his stays in Tahiti.
By now, it was around six o'clock. On the way back to the youth hostel, I had another stop at the Cathedral-Basilica of St John the Baptist and the adjacent 'campo santo' scheduled. When I entered the cathedral, an evening mass was just about to start. Beautiful organ music was playing and I sat down to listen for a while. A little later, a sextoness came to give me a text sheet. She assumed I was going to attend Mass. Indeed, when a soprano came on in addition to the live organ music, I continued to follow the mass because it was so beautiful.
Last Sunday a one Tara puja in a Tibetan monastery, this week a Christian mass in a cathedral. I really am on an interfaith journey this year.
16 September: Opening the door at Diamondway Buddhist Centre in Tallinn The centre's meditation sessions are open
