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Although Collioure is the major port of French Catalunya, its harbor is very small, and the town itself numbers just 3000 persons. We visited here the fortress which juts into the harbor. The Château Royale was built as a summer palace for the Kings of Mallorca. The church of Saint-Vincent is built with its nave actually on the water, and its bell tower doubled as a lighthouse in the early modern period. There are both rocky and sandy beaches which offer very charming (and dangerous) walks along the Côte Vermeille. There are nice gardens, a series of three abandoned seventeenth-century fortresses (one of which we conquered), and the Dominican monastery is a fun stop. The hills overlooking this small town are full of vines and olive trees, and after lunch we strolled through the vineyards on the southwest slopes of Collioure.
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Western Europe
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