Our planned four hours of driving turned into nine, but we are safely ensconced in the Auberge du Balestrie, a country inn in the northern foothills of the Pyrenees near the town of Mirepoix, France. We deliberately took back roads in from the coast after we crossed the border, and we saw some very beautiful country while avoiding the pre-weekend traffic on the major freeways. The Pyrenees tumble down precipitately on the French side, and what had looked like a mild-mannered country road took us instead up a narrow defile along a tumbling river. We were quickly in the mountains, so we turned north and headed down into the foothills and into easier country. It was a lovely day, just longer than we had expected.
Our first stop after leaving Begur was in Portbou, on the coast at the French border but still in Spain. Portbou is known for its railway station, a huge building that is also the entrance to a long tunnel southward through the coastal hills into Spain. For trains, it is the border check between the two countries, or it was in pre-EU days. In cars, one climbs a very steep hill heading north out of town, and at the very summit, high above the water, a sign announces "France", followed by a now-abandoned border station.
Portbou is also the town where Walter Benjamin died. Born in 1892 in Munich, Benjamin had an original and brilliant approach to modern philosophy and social critique. Of Jewish heritage, he was associated with the Frankfurt School of social theory and philosophy, and influenced or was influenced by such thinkers as Adorno, Baudelaire, Marx, Kafka, Arendt, Derrida, and Sontag. His essay “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” permanently changed my thinking.
Benjamin lived by his writings, which were published in various French and German newspapers. As Hitler rose to power, Benjamin left Germany and moved around Europe essentially in exile. In poor health and with little money, he was in Paris in 1940 when the German Armed Forces moved in. He and his sister fled south to Lourdes, where he obtained a travel visa to the U.S. He was on his way to embark from Portugal, and arrived on the train in Portbou to find that Franco had temporarily closed the border and ordered guards to turn back any Jewish refugees. In despair at the idea of falling into the Gestapo’s hands, Benjamin committed suicide by overdosing on morphine tablets in the hotel there. He was 48 years old.
It is a dramatic story, and one that we knew. We also knew that a memorial had been constructed in Portbou to Benjamin’s memory. It is a steep tunnel that heads down off a cliff to the rocky water. The impact of actually seeing it was strong, and we were further moved by a solitary gentleman who was visiting it at the same time, clearly moved himself by what the tunnel represented. It was the most powerful moment of the day.
Pictures, including that of our lunchnext to the beach at Banyuls-sur-Mers, are at https://goo.gl/photos/RjPLvmmtc8xDK22w8. Jerome had moules et frites (steamed mussels and french fries), to his great delight.
More from France tomorrow,
