Les hotels particuliers – magnificent private mansions of well-to-do families constructed between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Marc Anfossi , Parisien writer, wrote this poem when he came to Amélie-les-Bains to take the waters in January 1912.
June 1st, on a walk through the vineyards and orchards between Palau del Vidre and Laroque des Albères, something small and dark was approaching us along the track. Not slithering but walking. What on earth was it? Surely it couldn’t be … Could it?
This is a moderately easy walk up to and round a circuit in the wooded hills above Valmy Chateau, peaceful, beautiful and full of birdsong as you follow the winding footpath.
Is it a church? Was it a mosque? Does the curious clover leaf shaped Notre Dame de la Merci in Planès conceal the tomb of Abu-Nezah, the Arab Governor of the Cerdagne?
An update of local news in the Pyrenees-Orientales
Nature quiz
Pentecôte was a public holiday until 2005, when the French government, led by President Chirac, decided to cancel it!
Did you know that every year, hundreds of hectares of forest and brush land are destroyed by fire?
Did you know that the word ‘apéritif’ comes from the Latin ‘aperire’ meaning to open or uncover? As it is typically served before a meal to whet the appetite, (as opposed to a ‘digestif’, which is served at the end of a meal to aid digestion), it opens both appetites and a bottle or two.