Perpignan: Historic Sights and Places to Visit

Perpignan bears the imprint of its royal past in a compact historic centre of brick gateways, Gothic churches and merchants’ houses. Once a capital of the Kingdom of Majorca, the city is also the prefecture of Pyrénées-Orientales, set between the Roussillon plain, the Mediterranean coast and the Pyrenees.

A royal city in Roussillon

The Palais des Rois de Majorque occupies a hill above the city and the Roussillon plain. Part palace and part fortress, the Gothic complex is arranged around three courtyards. Its two chapels are placed one above the other: the upper chapel has a pink-marble portal, with the royal apartments on either side, while the lower one is known as the Chapelle de la Reine.

The Castillet recalls a different aspect of Perpignan’s defences. Built in the fourteenth century, this tower was once an entrance to the city. Louis XI converted it into a state prison after the occupation of Roussillon. Brick construction gives the building its distinctive pink colour.

The cathedral quarter and old streets

Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste is a work of Southern Gothic architecture whose construction extended from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. It became a cathedral in the early seventeenth century when the diocesan seat moved to Perpignan. Inside, the single nave is divided into seven bays; the major historic furnishing identified in the directory entry is the fourteenth-century Dévot Christ.

Immediately south of the cathedral is the Campo Santo, also called the Cloître Saint-Jean. This funerary cloister was built during the first half of the fourteenth century. Restoration work begun in 1991 addressed its funerary stones and bas-reliefs, while surviving columns and capitals were transferred to the Couvent des Minimes.

Place de la Loge formed the centre of medieval Perpignan. Its Loge de Mer, begun in the fourteenth century and completed in the sixteenth, had several civic and commercial roles: exchange, town hall and court for disputes arising from maritime trade. It later became a theatre and then a post office.

Nearby, Casa Xanxo records the success of the cloth merchant Bernat Xanxo. Dating from the early sixteenth century, it is one of the city’s surviving Gothic houses. A sculpted frieze on the façade represents the seven deadly sins and a scene of hell.

Fortifications beyond the centre

About fifteen kilometres north of Perpignan, the Forteresse de Salses was raised during the Franco-Spanish conflicts of the sixteenth century. Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile ordered it after French forces had sacked the village of Salses. Its low profile and defensive design belong to the transition between the traditional fortified castle and the bastioned architecture of the early modern period.

At the southern edge of Perpignan, the Fort du Serrat d’en Vaquer belongs to the late nineteenth century. Five buried bastions were designed chiefly for artillery, making much of the fort difficult to detect from the south. It saw little use, later became a powder store and was eventually converted into a public park.

The Têt and the Mediterranean

The Jardin Exotique de la Digue d’Orry covers almost 15,000 square metres beside the Têt. The directory entry records more than 200 tropical plant species, alongside Mediterranean vegetation in the less formal parts of the garden. The riverbank also opens views towards southern Perpignan and provides a place for observing birds.

Canet-en-Roussillon brings the coast within a short drive of the city. Its public beach is bordered by a promenade more than 1.5 kilometres long, and the shoreline continues towards Sainte-Marie-la-Mer to the north and Saint-Cyprien to the south.