After leaving the Eurocamp, we stopped at a small French town called Collioure on our way to Barcelona. We wandered the streets a little bit and saw some great buildings.
The town was colourful and had cute alleyways filled with local shops and restaurants.
And the town was right on the water.
For our first stop, we headed to the Château Royal de Collioure which is a fortified castle in the middle of town along the sea.
Here is the family walking to the castle.
Once we entered the castle, it had many different layers and buildings. Here is a courtyard in the middle of the castle.
We also walked through rooms with amazing fireplaces and stone floors. Here is Lia and I having fun.
This was a neat attic room. Rica is standing on a roof beam!
The castle also had this random basketball court in one of the yards.
There were also great views overlooking the mountains and the town.
The style of buildings varied in the complex. Here is a photo looking out to sea.
Here is Keena walking into a room.
From the top of the castle we could also see some great shots of the town.
I was able to lean over the side of the railing and take a photo of the water below.
It was really nice to wander around.
Another family photo on our way out of the castle.
We then headed into the centre of town to catch the tiny train. Keena had found that it was a great tourist thing to do. So we hooped on the train which drove us out of town and up into the mountains.
As we started to climb out of the town, we had great views of all the vineyards.
The tour guide said that all the vineyards were cultivated by hand and some of the fields were on very steep slopes.
It was quite surprising how high we climbed into the mountains.
Here are some cork trees that we drove by.
As we got to the top of the mountain we had climbed, we could see a fort in the distance with vineyards below it.
We stopped next to the fort to get some great photos of Collioure. You can see the castle that we spent the morning at in the centre of the photo (big grey building).
Here are Lia and Rica taking in the view.
Here is a self portrait I took.
Since we tend to be ambitious sometimes, we talked to the guy driving the train who said it would only take us about 40 minutes to walk back to the town. So we jumped off the train and decided to visit the fort that we saw.
It was called Fort Saint Elme. The Fort started out as a watch town in the 9th century and then was added onto over the years.
When we arrived, the place was completely empty which was nice. The woman selling us the tickets for the Fort provided some costumes so the girls could be little knights! Too cute.
Once the girls were ready, we headed up to the top of the fort.
Here is Rica defending a drawbridge.
The Fort had great views over the mountains.
It also had cannon balls to view.
Here is Lia taking her role to defend the Fort very seriously. Keena trying to get away!
Another photo overlooking Collioure.
They had a few displays including armour for knights.
How would you like to defend a Fort with this view?
So nice!
More photos of the girls having fun.
After our time at the Fort, we headed down the mountain back to the town. Here is a photo from the top of the walk.
On the way down, we walked by an old mill overlooking the town.
Here is the castle we visited earlier from across the bay.
I liked this photo of a bell tower that had grass and plants growing out the top.
As we got closer to town, the landscape changed and we were walking among trees.
After our fun adventure, we decided to have a late lunch by the water. The girls got the most impressive crepes ever! They loved them.
And I couldn't resist the mussels and frites!
After our exciting day in Collioure, we jumped back in the car and headed south.
