Photo : Alan Mattingly / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
L'anse de Paulilles, un bijou de la Côte Catalane
The Anse de Paulilles is a small sheltered bay on the Mediterranean coast of the Pyrénées-Orientales, at the foot of the Albères massif, in the commune of Port-Vendres, about three kilometres south of the port. Owned by the Conservatoire du littoral and part of the Natura 2000 network, it is a protected area open to the public, surrounded by Banyuls-Collioure vines.
The site was once home to a dynamite factory, built in 1870 by Paul François Barbe, Alfred Nobel's partner in France. The factory closed in July 1991, then was bought by the Conservatoire du littoral in 1998. From 2005, the département renovated nine buildings, demolished nearly seventy others and laid out the place, opened to the public in June 2008. A museum of industrial heritage and a Catalan boat repair workshop have been set up there. The beaches of Bernardi, del Mitg and Fourat border the bay.
