Today we headed to the beach. First, we dropped by the Salses Fortress. It is a Spanish fortress and you can see the different in the architecture and especially in the colors. It is a well preserved fortress and is surrounded by a mote. It was funny, but they had multiple signs about falling into the mote. They couldn’t stick to one kind of sign as we saw probably three different ways to picture falling. It was a beautiful day outside and you could just barely pick out the Pyrenees with their snow covered tips in the distance.
After the fortress, we headed to Collioure, a beach community. It is a fun little town on the beach. We spent most of the time touring the local castle. Here’s where you got to see something very different about the French, at least their military. They have a local special forces training unit that lives in the castle, and they do training on the beach in front of the public. We got to watch them scuba dive, and jump in and out of boats all day long. In the US, they would hide even this very basic training from the public. I think here it was a way for the French to see what they were getting for their money. I liked it, and it gave me a chance to practice some difficult photography.