Perpignan – Collioure – Portbou
Part 3 Portbou
Portbou Appears down in the valley in front of us. This is famous here Walter Benjamin Monument. The Israeli artist Dani Karavan In the early 1990s, this highly acclaimed symbol of deceptive freedom was created to address Walter Benjamin and the victims of fascism to remember. The Monument Located next to the cemetery above the town and port. A rusty long metal staircase descends through a tunnel down the steep slope to the sea. The view between the rust-colored steel walls falls directly into the water. A staircase to nowhere. Symbolically for the blocked path to freedom, a glass plate borders the shaft to the sea.
In February 1939, thousands fled from Franco’s approaching troops. Among them also the Jewish philosopher and writer Walter Benjamin. His suicide saved the lives of other refugees.
Dani Karavan constructed in Portbou in tribute to Walter Benjamin Den Memorial «Passages». This large landscape installation is “a field of tension of formal austerity and poetic expression, of nature and memory”. In it engraved in 5 languages the words: “It is harder to honor the memory of the nameless than that of the famous one. The historical construction is dedicated to the memory of the nameless.”
Walter Benjamin. G.S. I,1241.
Further past Colera, the evening sun has finally taken over the power in the sky. The sea turns azure blue. 
On the horizon white sails, the screams of circular seagulls, a picturesque bay on the left. The Platja de Garbet Has style. The Garbet Beach Restaurant is considered a gourmet address by the sea. Arrived in Port de la Selva, the sun slowly slips behind the horizon. The nets of the fishermen are spread out. We stroll relaxed and tired along the sea. The last sailors are looking for the safe haven. we a small restaurant. The off-season has its very special appeal: you get a good place with a view everywhere. The Costa Brava Also worth a trip in October.
