Life and lunch in Italy

Wednesday in Sorrento; overcast and with rain in the air. In discovering an Italy outside Venice, The Other Half and I realised that far better planning is needed if we were not to find that all our boats (to the Amafi villages) had sailed by the middle of the morning and left us wondering what to do with the rest of the day.

That I was not sure where my purse is did not help. I was fairly certain it was in our room at the hotel, because I am good about this sort of thing. But nervousness hovered.

Sipping cappuccinos by the marina, we contemplated what to do. In the event, we decided to see if there was any of Sorrento’s old town – at least the shopping bit of it – that we had not checked out two days earlier.

It turns out that we had not seen everything – even in tourist shopping terms. We had not, for instance, seen any of the shops selling the cameos that feature highly in guide books for the town.

Our first encounter was in a shop where a craftsman sat at the front, crafting a cameo on shell, while completed works were on display in cabinets around him. An assistant hovered, ready to take cash or card.

There were some interesting pieces. They took conventional cameo style and used it in a more modern way: some of them quite Goth.

There were works in coral as well as shell.

Climbing the steep street we discovered further shops selling cameos, but none as good and none with someone inside the front window showing how it’s done.

After filling time in such a way, what about lunch? The Other Half asked the question. I didn’t know what I was in the mood for, but shortly after, spotted a sign to an eatery that was off the street. No waiters – the new mermaids – were trying to lure us in, so that was a recommendation.

We found a table under plastic cover, in a garden. To my right, with a table between us, sat a middle-aged American couple. They had come from the vast cruise ship moored just outside Sorrento’s marina.

The experience of the cruise was telling and husband was musing to wife that what he was seeing and experiencing in Europe was showing him that actually, it was the US that had vast problems.

But his philosophising was a cut short as another couple took this table between us.

The new couple were also American. In this case, just married.

The OH's salt-baed fish, about to be served

The younger woman was Barbie in a pink, belted tunic coat, over pale, flowered leggings and with large, looped earrings covered in glimmering stones, impossibly smooth foundation and huge eyelashes.

The women talked as though the US is a tiny island and they’ve known each other for years. They discussed fashion across the tables. The older woman then asked how you got to Sorrento if not from the sea, astonished that this part of the world can be traversed by train.

The newly married couple shared oysters with a sense of intimate theatre. They were also ‘experimenting’ with different wines, so depending how much they got through, the oysters may have been rendered useless.

He wore a cream, soft leather jacket that screamed a high price tag and was probably bought locally.

As the older couple, who were from Arizona, departed, the woman told their lunch acquaintances: “Just keep saying ‘I love you’ – that’s something I learned early.”

Once they’d gone, it was clear he was already learning to love conversation about shopping.

For their second course, she had a plate of spaghetti with black truffle; he, a lobster with ravioli. After a few bites, they exchanged plates.

Terrific turbot

Compared to young, female diners seen elsewhere, terrified of the calorific content of half a bowl of leaves, she was trying an interesting and sensual tack – relishing her food with ‘hmms’ and ‘ahhs’: there was even a breathy sigh that is all polite orgasm. How long can this last?

Her conversation quickened with the wine.

At one point, shaking her head and fluttering her eyelashes at the same time, she gazed across the table and said: “Amazing!” Shortly after came a whispered ‘wow!’

When he went to find the rest room, she Instagramed her food through a filter.

On the other side of us sat a multi-race British couple in late middle age. He was hoping for onion in his salad, but had no luck when he asked the waiter if this was possible. Both had lobster.

He and the boiled crustacean shared a complexion. In his case, this was in contrast with white hair cut short in a fashion that seemed almost military: a pink polo shirt, a navy sweater and a beige gillet. She sported an elegant scarf in blue and white over a sea green top and seemed to take her husband’s worries about the importance of onion as a salad ingredient with good grace.

They worked at the lobster with quiet pleasure. In the event, the lack of allium amid the leaves did not seem to be such a major problem.

Nearby, a French couple dined; he swirled a glass of wine and then tasted it with a certain disdain.

I had turbot in a lemon cream sauce that supported the view, discovered online, that this restaurant is really very good. I’d say it was the best turbot I’ve had. The Other Half had salt-baked bream. It produced theatre, followed by good eating.

This is life and lunch in Italy.

Oh: and my purse was back in the room, in a bag. So much for the panic.

Marketing at its brightest – a food and drink special

A few weeks ago, my grocery delivery included in it a bottle of still water: a sample of a new(ish) product to try to induce me to buy more.

In this case, it was 850ml of ‘Glacéau Smart Water’, which proclaims itself to be: “vapour distilled water with added electrolytes”. “Vapour distilled” should be hyphenated, as it’s a compound adjective, but I’ll stop the grammar pedantry there (possibly).

It claims that it’s “smart because it’s made that way”. And just how is it “made?” you might ask. I mean, it’s Adam’s ale, for goodness sake.

Well, there’s no need to fret for long, as the bottle has a lengthy explanation.

“inspired by clouds

“clean, crisp taste [the absence of capital letters is their idea, not mine]

“sometimes the answer is right under your nose, and other times it’s floating above your head... in our case, it was the humble cloud that got us thinking.

“inspired by the water cycle, we vapour distil our spring water and then add electrolytes to deliver a distinctive, clean, crisp taste.

“smart because it’s made that way.”

The ingredients list – yes, this is a bottle of water, but there are ingredients – reads as follows: “spring water, electrolytes, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, potassium bicarbonate.”

It’s “Made in GB” and “bottled in Northumberland” – in spite of that “Glacéau” bit trying to give it a spot of Frenchified sophistication.

And reading down through the small print, “Glacéau smartwater is a trademark of Energy Brands Inc”. If you want to get in touch with them, you can write to “Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd, Uxbridge UB8 1EZ”.

So, how does it taste? Okay: it’s no better or worse than any other bottled water. And no better than the water that is ‘made’ by the filter jug I keep in the fridge.

At 80p for 850ml from the supermarket in question (or 56.8p if you buy a crate of 12 600ml bottles), that doesn’t sound too bad, until you realise that Volvic still mineral water is 60p for 1.5 litres, Evian can be had for 84p for 2 litres and Highland Spring for 33.3p a litre; Buxton Spring Water is available at 60p for a 1.5 litre bottle, Brecon Carreg at 30.6p per litre and the company’s basic brand for as little as 18.8p a litre.

‘Smart water my arse,’ as Jim Royle might put it: ‘smart’ only for global sugar merchants Coca-Cola, who will be laughing all the way to the bank when the gullible buy this new piece of hip marketing – because that’s what they’re buying.

This is water for people who are ‘smart’ enough to recognise the word ‘electrolytes’ from drinks marketed for those doing sport, and who will assume that they’re essential for health and, well, they probably need to ingest some more. They might be put off by buying something from Coca-Cola, which perhaps explains why that global icon doesn’t make more of its name on the bottle.

It’s the same way that much else is marketed these days – not least if it’s to do with health. Some of the claims made for ‘detox’ products are, frankly, every bit as laughable as the description of this ‘smart’ water, but it doesn’t make supposedly-intelligent individuals hand over their hard earned in search of some sort of health nirvana.

There are plenty of products out there that are marketed at people who are trying to be healthy, which prey on that desire and an element of ignorance about health, together with the results of our general lack of a food culture.

Watching TV over the weekend, I was reminded of an advert that had previously earned my attention.

It’s for Bertolli spread.

“Farmers tried many ways to combine olive oil with rich, creamy butter, until they discovered new Bertolli with butter: a delicious blend with butter and olive oil, so tasty they fell in love with it,” claims an Italian-accented voice, over pictures of a happy, rustic Italian couple enjoying bread heaped with the spread in question, after he patently fails to get his cow to understand what an olive is.

“New Bertolli with butter: a delicious blend with butter and olive oil.”

I have previously asked Bertolli brand owner Unilever, via Twitter, for evidence of the claim that at least two farmers (since the plural is used) had tried to blend olive oil and butter before Unilever managed it, but I have never had any response.

But then, why would anyone try that?

The ordinary olive oil I buy (the one I use for cooking) is Spanish, with the following ingredient list: “refined olive oil, virgin olive oil”.

My butter has one ingredient: “butter”.

Ordinary Bertolli spread has the following ingredients: “Vegetable Oils in varying proportions (38%) (Rapeseed, Palm, Sunflower), Water, Olive Oil (21%), Sweet Whey Powder (Milk), Buttermilk, Salt (1.1%), Emulsifier (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Thickener (Sodium Alginate), Citric Acid, Natural Flavouring, Vitamins A and D, Colour (Carotenes)”.

Bertolli Light is made up thus: “Water, Vegetable Oils in varying proportions (22%) (Rapeseed, Palm, Sunflower), Olive Oil (16%), Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Buttermilk, Emulsifiers (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Sunflower Lecithin), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Citric Acid, Natural Flavouring, Vitamins A and D, Colour (Carotenes)”.

Is it any wonder those stupid Italian farmers couldn’t come up with the way to combine butter and olive oil? They forgot to think of the modified corn starch or the sodium alginate. Doh!

But hands up – why would anyone want to spread that on their toast and why would anyone think it healthier than olive oil or butter?

Unilever, of course, has come up with such a product (along with its Flora range) in order to profit from the health advice that fat is bad for you – advice that is increasingly being shown to have been bad itself.

But while that’s one thing – and it’s the way in which big food gets away with marketing yogurt stuffed with sugar, by labeling it ‘low fat’, which is viewed as a synonym for ‘healthy’ – it’s another to wonder how companies are allowed to come up with such fantastical claims as this about farmers trying to blend olive oil and butter.

The marketing for that ‘smart’ water is actually quite clever: it makes no claims about any particular health benefits, including for consumption of its added electrolytes; it doesn’t say that it’s the best taste around or anything similar.

It relies entirely on a certain gullibility.

But then, Coca-Cola has been bitten before, when it emerged after the 2004 launch of its “pure” Dasani bottled water, that what punters were getting for their money was simply tap water that had been filtered three times, using “reverse osmosis”, and with ozone injected to keep it sterile.

Bertolli, on the other hand, is marketed partly via a fantastical claim for which no evidence is given, and on the back of an increasingly discredited belief that the saturated fat of butter is inherently unhealthy.

Its claims of contributing to “a healthy lifestyle” and its entire linking to a simpler, Mediterranean lifestyle, are what give it its power.

So there you have it: two sorts of marketing: two sorts of twaddle.

Back to basics and a spot of deduction

A very small kitchen for very tall people

Arriving in new holiday rental accommodation is always an intriguing prospect – not least when you have important questions in mind such as: ‘what is the kitchen like?’ and ‘will the knives be sharp enough to fillet a fish?’

The kitchen this year is small but very nicely designed. Except that it was clearly designed for the Scandanavians who own the house and not for a shortarse like me, who would require a step ladder to get to anything more than the front of the bottom shelves of the cupboards above the sink, cooker etc.

And then there’s the electric bin. Yes, that’s right – a battery-powered bin. With no batteries in it. So it doesn’t work. I have, therefore, had to leave the bin bag inside it – because I am most certainly not going out and buying batteries to power an effing bin – but with the top training out through the lid, which at least means I can open the lid manually, rather than have to pull the entire top section off every time I want to throw something away.

There is also no cafetière, but one of those rather old-fashioned machines that requires a paper filter each and every time you wish to make coffee.

The important stuff

And there’s an over-complex orange squeezer, which will probably not be moved from its spot while we’re here.

The other big question on arrival is what provisions or basics you need to buy to get going.

In this case, there were some loo rolls and some kitchen paper, but no decent oil or vinegar (unless it’s hidden at the back of a cupboard way above my head), only the sort of salt that has additives to make it run, two eggs in the kitchen fridge and two and a half small bottles of tonic in the wine fridge on the third floor, next to the roof terrace.

The terrace bit is, incidentally, a key reason we picked this particular address this year.

Not just any old tonic, but Carrefour tonic. Which was pretty flat, so we watered the geraniums with it. Cut flowers love crappy lemonade, after all.

The Other Half, employing a modicum of Holmsian deduction, reasoned that the previous residents had therefore been Brits, whose idea of rooftop boozing involved gin.

More important stuff

I, perhaps a tad cynically, observed that the lack of any decent condiments or cooking items and the dominance of Carrefour’s cheapest label on anything that was still around rather bore this out.

Indeed, when The Other Half later checked the computer to see if he could work out whether the router was on, it was to find that the most recent internet pages that had been opened had been for used car dealers in Essex.

Perhaps our cynicism was not far off the mark.

We sat down and debated the best approach. It was mid-afternoon and, after a morning on the beach, we’d enjoyed a pleasant lunch at Fort St Elme – a traditional start to our holiday. In my case, calamari. It was advertised as coming with rice, but I asked for, and received, frites and aîoli instead.

All quiet as I head to Sunday's market

Once the unpacking was done, we headed into the centre of the village.

My plan was to pick up a small can of the very best virgin olive oil that (in my opinion) is to be found in the area.

It’s made not far from Collioure, from olives grown in the region. And one of the pressings is made with the stones still in it, adding a particularly pepper quality to the green, grassy oil. Absolutely gorgeous stuff.

Memory served me well and we found the shop easily (not that you can get lost here). We bought a small can that will do us well for dipping bread and for dressings over the coming weeks.

Not far away is Barry Blend’s gallery, so we nipped in to say hello to his wife and make a date: I’m interviewing Barry later this week – so watch out for that.

Now these are what I call tomatoes

A rapidly necked cola light by the beach was followed by a far more leisurely sangria, and then a wander back to the alimentation near the house, where we did a substantial stock up, and finally the boulangerie for a freshly-baked loaf.

Coffee, water, wine and bread – how much more basic can it get?

Some fruit too, some patés, a piece of cheese and a little pre-packed saucisson; some pamplemousse rosé (pink grapefruit juice, but isn’t pamplemousse’ a wonderful word?), a few cherry tomatoes and a cucumber.

Nothing complicated at all. And a repast that was quick, easy and entirely adequate to our needs.

Sunday morning saw this year’s first visit to the market and the chance to get even more essentials.

Fish for this evening – confusingly, it was labeled ‘sar du pays’, which is not easily translatable via Google, but which seems to be something along the lines of ‘regional fish’.

It looked very like dorade to me, but what was certain was that it was immaculately fresh.

Supper gives me the eye

More tomatoes – glorious, misshapen organic ones in a multitude of colours and sizes: the ones I dream of for the rest of the year; the ones that taste of the sun.

More cheese and then some serious charcuterie from a stall where I almost breakfasted on the samples the man there hands to customers to try.

Additional bread and a croissant for The Other Half went in the bag from a very good boulangerie in that part of the village, plus a quick visit to the little Carrefour provided bin liners and a big pot of yogurt for my breakfasts.

Or not yogurt this time, but fromage frais, which is a little like the German quark, and will be consumed with rhubarb compote, which was found in a large jar in the same shop.

The fish didn’t prove too difficult to fillet – if I do this once or twice the rest of the year, it would be a miracle: in other words, I’m far from well practiced.

And I also need to remember to scrape of scales before doing anything else – even if just with a knife.

As simple as it gets

And it was another of the episodes that made me really consider bringing over a fish knife and my pin-boning pliars next time. There’s no knife sharpener either.

Anyway, the fish, once filleted, went skin side up under a hot grill, on a lightly-oiled, foil-lined grill tray.

It took around eight minutes before I turned it and gave it another three.

Having forgotten to pick up a lemon, it was served with a ‘salad’ of sliced tomatoes, salted, and bread, with Balsamico and oil to dip.

Food like this is pretty much as basic as it gets. But when the ingredients are this good, who needs anything more complicated?

Cook – there's a caterpillar in my salad!

Chicken salad with orange and tarragon

This weather is glorious and, after a poor summer last year and a lengthy, demoralising winter that pretty much consumed the spring, nobody should be grumbling.

But, unaccustomed as we are to such soaring temperatures, it can make eating a little more difficult. After all, this is hardly meat-and-two-veg weather.

In which case, it seems the perfect opportunity to look toward the Mediterranean – not simply for holidays to come, but for culinary ideas for the here and now.

Wondering what to start the day with on Sunday, having seen The Other Half off to sunny Castleford for the Rugby League, I came up with a bit of an experiment: feta and strawberries. And it works.

It doesn’t need anything with it – the saltiness of the cheese gives seasoning. The textures are a nice contrast and the sweetness of good strawberries is always a joy.

What I’ve mentioned in the last week about vegetables and simplicity could hardly have been more timely.

For lunch on Sunday, some fine beans and late-season English asparagus, served with a piece of smoked mackerel and gooseberry terrine (Waitrose), and a drizzle of thick Balsamico – I opted for this over virgin oil, as it cuts through the natural sweetness of most of the other ingredients.

Dinner was back to Bruno Loubet terrain and his new book.

This time, a chance to try the grilled mackerel with salted, pressed watermelon and a lime mayonnaise.

I probably over-salted the watermelon, but the dish as a whole was light and fresh – perfect for this weather.

Mind, nothing in this weather, can lay a hand to a fresh gazpacho. There must be plenty of variations – every cook will have their own tweak – but the result is refreshing, nutritious, tasty and, well, simply perfect.

I was introduced to it one summer some years ago, when I was whinging about not knowing what to eat, by m’friend George, whose wife is Spanish. So it’s the real McCoy.

He wouldn’t give people the recipe unless decent tomatoes were available. In those days, I wondered why. Now, I have no doubts. It is a dish that needs good incidents – and a dish that is designed for exactly when they will be available.

It is, in other words, an icon of seasonal eating.

Smoked mackerel terrine and seasonal vegetables

You need properly ripe tomatoes – even better if you are growing your own and can pick them just as you need them. But otherwise, stick some on a plate and under the sun for a short while. That’ll help.

Take six or seven really ripe ones and blitz them. Follow that with a small cucumber – preferably one of those with a rough skin, which you peel first. This is also where using organic, if you can get it, is worth it too.

Next into the blender goes a handful of breadcrumbs.

Then a small onion – or as yesterday, a large shallot – followed by a clove of garlic (or two).

After that, it’s four tablespoons of wine vinegar. Actually, when making this yesterday, I realised that at the back of my great vinegar collection, I had a small bottle of raspberry champagne vinegar, with just about exactly the right amount left, so I used that.

Next, in goes a cup of olive oil and then salt to taste.

Chill. To serve, dilute to taste with either iced water or ice cubes.

And so thanks again to George for Gazpacho Doña Luisa.

It says everything about last summer that I never reached a point of wanting gazpacho: in the last few days, it’s been one of the things that was automatically on my mind.

I’d love to be able to make it in Collioure next month, given the divine tomatoes I can get there, but I don’t know whether there’ll be a blitzing facility. Fingers crossed.

What there will be, however, is a pan and a knife – and that’s all I’ll need for a ratatouille to make the most of local produce that I can find at the village market.

But back to the here and now.

On Sunday, I also roasted a chicken – my preferred River Café method; three and a half hours.

Set the oven to 80˚C (fan).

Stuff your bird – I can’t recall what the book says, as I just use what’s available. In this case, one and a half lemons and half a dozen cloves of garlic, crushed.

Pop the bird the usual way up in the tightest-fitting dish you’ve got. Pour in around 100ml of water and give it an hour. Then turn it over and give it another hour. Then turn it back to how it started – and give it a third hour.

There a caterpillar in here somewhere

Take it out and ratchet the heat up to 170˚C (fan). Message butter into the bird and season. At this point, you can add 200ml of vermouth, but it’s not essential. More water will do. And so give it a final half hour’s cooking.

The flesh will be tender and moist, and the skin will be crisp and brown.

It’s not really roast dinner weather, though, so the bird was then allowed to cool.

Yesterday’s first task was to strip the meat off it and make stock – easy enough, but rather hot for the weather!

The bulk of the stock has gone into the freezer, but a small jar was then further reduced, with the addition of the juice of half an orange and some tarragon leaves.

Strain and allow to cool, and then add some white wine vinegar, some olive oil and seasoning to taste.

Serve as a dressing over cold chicken, on a bed of leaves and garnished (if you feel so inclined) with an odd slice or segment of orange, and some fresh tarragon leaves.

The leaves on my plate were a combination of watercress and young lettuce leaves – the latter, the first crop from the potager.

Lesson one, though: rinse thoroughly before putting them in the salad spinner. That way, you’ll be able to rinse off any insect life that is too large to fall through the basket when you’re spinning it.

Mind, that small green caterpillar must have been dizzy.

The lettuce was a delight and the chicken was spot on.

Light dining that’s just perfect for these wonderful, hot days.

Three ways with art in Collioure

Watercolour, Philippe Emile Castelhac

“We don’t need any more art, this year,” had been the agreement.

To be fair, you never “need” art, do you?

If this was intended to dissuade us from returning from holiday with more art for a flat that already looks like an overcrowded cross between a gallery and a library, then perhaps it would be more convincing if we stopped vacationing in a village that’s at least as famous for art as for anchovies.

But this year’s artistic highlights provided interesting contrasts to the same basic question: representing the Mediterranean light.

We had barely arrived in Collioure when we spotted that there was an exhibition on at the local Museum of Modern Art.

It took us until almost the end of the trip to visit, but it paid dividends.

Léopold Survage (1879-1968) was a French painter of Finnish-Danish-Russian origin.

He was originally destined for life as a piano tuner in the family piano making business, before illness changed his perspectives.

Pêcheuses de Collioure, Léopold Survage, 1930.

In 1908, he spent some time in Paris, studying under Matisse – one of the founders of the Fauves while living and working in Collioure, where he said the light was the best in the world.

Survage became a Cubist. But by the time he moved to Collioure in 1925, where he would spend the next seven years, he had adopted a more neo-classical style.

His earlier work had been full of vibrant colour – exactly what you would expect would suit the Mediterranean.

But that wasn’t quite what happened.

The palette that he adopted was a far more muted one: dusty blues and yellows and greens that can, when you see them at first, appear faded.

And from his early pictures, which included a significant number of pecheuse – women with fish – he returned to Cubism.

The planes of that style are suited to the sense of the strong contrasts between dark shadow and bright light. His landscape is a stark one.

Add in Survage’s love of symbolism – a falling leaf here, a dove there, and you have major elements of his work from this period.

He returned time and again to the women, representing them again with fish (a favourite theme) and also in trios, titled as pietas – although mostly with no obvious religious connotation. Just one in the exhibition was a religious version.

It’s difficult not to look at Cubist art through the prism of Picasso, as the Spanish giant was one of the fathers of the movement, but you have to try to look at Survage’s work in its own right.

I’m fascinated that Survage turned back to Cubism to achieve what he wanted, and that his palette, although so apparently muted, captures the light and shade and heat so very well.

But what makes this even more fascinating is how different artists approach the same subject – and find very different solutions to the same basic question.

In Collioure, you have an extraordinary opportunity to see myriad different approaches all in a small area. The village has more than 20 galleries.

Some artists go for a conventional, figurative approach – others less so.

An artist I’ve seen many times around the village is Philippe Emile Castelhac, often to be spotted at his easel, instantly recognisable in white slacks and shirt, and a panama hat.

His major approach is sanguine drawing: a style used extensively in the 15th and 16th centuries, it involves crayon or chalk work, in blood red, reddish or flesh colouring. The pigment is usually iron oxide.

Castelhac’s work has a great precision and the results have something of the quality of sepia photographs about them although, when you see them up close, you realise that he doesn’t put every single detail in his work – it’s almost reminiscent of pointillism.

The royal castle, Collioure, by Philippe Emile Castelhac

We’d never seen his gallery before, but when we found ourselves passing it one afternoon, we nipped in.

What his pictures capture is something of the timeless quality of the village, even though he doesn’t avoid the tourists and the shops and cafes that cater for the influx of visitors.

The real surprise, though, came in a single watercolour, in a far more modern and less naturalistic style, which showed rooftops in a pink, dawn light (see the picture at the top of this post.)

I’ve seen that light in Collioure; early in mornings when the air is utterly quiet, before the holidaymakers wake, when I wander around the narrow streets with the camera, feeling briefly that I have the place to myself.

And then there is Barry Blend. His work is not limited to Collioure, but the village does feature in a large amount of his work – as with his bas relief of the castle and Catalan barque (left).

Indeed, as mentioned a few days ago, we returned with one of his sculptures this year. 

Plus a plaque for the garden wall (see below). I was going to paint it with some plain yogurt to really get the weathering process going, but we decided against it once we saw how it looked.

The solution here is, on the surface, an almost cartoon simplicity.

But that’s deceptive: planes are far from flat and the composition is excellent.

But the palette is a big, bold, colourful one – and Blend’s work radiates a real joie de vivre, which was so perfectly appropriate for his bandana for last month’s fete.

And if the ultimate test of art is what you most enjoy living with, then this joyful work passes the test with ease.

So Collioure and the Mediterranean have been requiring different solutions from different artists for more than a century.

This trio of painters – apparently unconnected – were just three of the artists that we happened to encounter, in one way or another, on this trip.

And each of them found a way to represent Collioure that was different – but always with an authenticity that made you recognise it in their work.