Patrick O'Brian, celebrated author of maritime novels whom the BBC featured in a recent programme, will be dealt with elsewhere in this newspaper, no doubt. This is merely a few notes about his home in France where he lived for some 40 years: Collioure, on the Cote Vermeille of the eastern Mediterranean. Not so far from the Spanish border, it snuggles under the Alberes, the foothills of that end of the Pyrenees. A topical note. You wonder how many of the fine trees around that lovely little French/Catalan town survived the Christmas storms which devastated so much forestry. There was one shot where he looks across the bay, and there, hanging over a hotel and its terrace was a huge flat-topped, spreading giant conifer. In general, that corner of France seems to have got off lightly. So much history in and around this town. Too much to tell: from the Romans - no, before them. So many substantial military buildings or their remains. Above the sea and its harbours, the stepped vineyards, the produce of which you naturally drink: Cotes du Roussillon of various marques. And was it not said that O'Brian himself had a vineyard? It is a tourist town and yet not. It is a town which protects its dignity. No kitch or very little. Its colours and its essence drew painters, like bees to pollen. Derain painted the harbour in startling pinks and reds; Matisse, no less colourful. It is said that Fauvism began in Collioure, and many artists since have followed.
On Sunday a market takes over the main gathering place, surrounded by stately plane trees. There is everything from honey to herbs, which cover a great area and spread their odours far beyond their stalls; fish, kitchen utensils, tapes and CD's; fruit, vegetables, sandwiches and coffee. Even second-hand books. And more. Then, early in the afternoon, the scores of open-sided lorries from which food, especially, is dispensed are gone and the local men can get down to their games of petanque or boules. Patrick O'Brian's house, seemed, from a few shots of him at home, to have been on the slopes above the bay, and with luck he could have had on one side the view all along the coast of the Roussillon.
Collioure is well known for its sea fishing. Especially, perhaps, of anchovy, and you don't know this fish until you taste it, just salted for perhaps two or three days, silver, glistening and usually served in restaurants on the plate, like spokes of a wheel, radiating out from the centre, and alternating with slices of red pepper. A unique town, Collioure, at the best, but not so fashionable end of the Mediterranean of France. This could go on for a week, singing the praises of Collioure. We've hardly touched on its unique virtues. But you will be spared.