Three hours in Perpignan

A short wandering this time that started well with an excellent tajine in a small restaurant called Chez Ali's - I think. And it certainly was chez lui (his place) - a small front room with weird sparkly 1980s floor-tiled walls and snowmen tablecloths, and, at the back, a rudimentary kitchen with cooker, clay tajines, a couple of big cooking pots and not a lot else.
My sort of place: great, home-cooked inexpensive food and a National Geographic channel blaring out a program about people rescuing giant anacondas from toilet cisterns. What more could you ask for?

                          

                                            Ali's tajine with 'meat'

Mark went to do his Gamelan workshops at the Casa Musical and I had a good mooch about in the drizzle (unusual, here.)
I hadn't done any of the January sales, but after noticing the shops had got to their desperation, everything 60% off-point I found myself in a rather beautiful shoe shop looking at a fabulous pair of Italian handmade boots . . . well, they were 60% off and I have been wearing secondhand footwear for some years.
While justifying this expenditure I walked back towards the Casa Musical and explored the area, starting with a exceptionally well-preserved church full of carving, baroque angels and chandeliers. A man who had been lurking in his small glassed-off room - where it must have been warm - came out and insisted I had a tour. It was fascinating but I only understood about three words in ten as his Catalan accent as rich as the church's interior. One thing I did retain was that the church had been a present from the King of Majoc to his wife - somewhat different to a garage forecourt bouquet . . .


         
                                                    Worth lying on the floor to contemplate

This area of Perpignan is fairly untouched although gentrification is creeping along in the form of climbing roses planted outside certain newly done-up dwellings. Still, much to photograph for the amateur of decaying building details however.

                    

                                                  Ancient bar which I think is still used  

                                         Long-abandoned fruit and veg emporium

The drizzle had morphed into rain and it was time to return - via a Moroccan patisserie shop - to the Casa Musical where sadly only two participants had turned up for the second session. The man setting up for another event nodded out at the grim weather and informed us that Catalan people don't go out if it's raining. They probably wouldn't enjoy life in Mawsynram a village in the Meghalaya region of India - had to look . . . the wettest place to live on Earth.


                       
                
     
                                                     King of the Cartier
       


                       

                                           Someone composing a blues song on a pizza box