Perpignan is the closest French city to the Costa Brava and is reachable in about 80 minutes from where we live. In distance terms it's closer than Barcelona which means that when we want something special, travelling to France is another possibility.
Perpignan itself was originally an important Catalan town, part of the old Catalan county of Roussillon and only became French in As a result modern Perpignan and the local area style themselves as being part of Catalunya Nord with signs in both French and Catalan not Spanish and there is a strong affinity for Catalonia.
However, it also has a strong French feel and there is definite change when you cross the border. One of the visible changes is that you see rugby posts in the sports fields. Like many places in the south of France, people around Perpignan are fanatical about rugby and Perpignan itself has not one professional rugby team, but two. Coming from the West Country, I was brought up on rugby rather than football and as it happens Gloucester, which used to be our local rugby club was playing Perpignan in the pan-European Heineken Cup competition so this was a chance to get to see my old home team once more.
Unfortunately on the Spanish side of the border, rugby is still very much a minor sport in Catalonia. Barcelona has more across the city, and is trying to increase participation with help from USAP, and about four years ago, USAP came down to Barcelona to play Toulon in the Heineken cup at the Olimpic Stadium with 55, spectators, much to the city's surprse. Before we watched the rugby, we took a brief walk around the main town.
It's actually a place we visit reasonably often. The shopping is different from the Spanish side of hte border - many French products don't make it across the frontier and there is generally a better selection of produce, and a different selection of goods and a different style and range and though prices tend to be a little higher in France, there are still some bargains for cross-border consumption.
