After visiting Tautavel the day before and spending the night in a modern and beautiful Airbnb in Llupia, we then headed to Castlenou. This village hidden between two mountains is a local gem and was awarded the ”Plus Beaux Villages de France” label, one of the many reasons we’d decided to include it in our summer roadtrip.
Although the clouds and fog were present with us in the morning (direct consequences of the mountains surrounding the village), they faded away around 11am. If possible, I would strongly recommend getting there early: the village rapidly gets crowded and parking quite tricky. As for us, we got to Castelnou at around 9.30am and were able to park
(not that easily though).
We enjoyed wandering and walking around Castelnou’s charming streets, while visiting some of its best local arts and crafts (paintings, jewels, modern art, etc). Each street offers a different view, sometimes on the roofs even, and I loved getting lost trying to pass by all streets at least once, especially considering we were not that many people in the village at that time of the day. We almost felt like we had the village to ourselves which was kindacool!
Unfortunately, we could not visit the castle when we were there because of constructions but it’s also a must-see in this Castelnou which offers some of the best views over the surrounding mountains.
As morning went by, the number of visitors rapidly increased, especially during lunchtime. We had heard about a very short walk outside the village to join the Torre de Castelnou and this was actually one of the highlights of our visit. Off the beaten paths down the parking lot, there’s indeed a not-so-cleared 10-minute-long trail leading to the tower.
I recommend going there since you’ll most probably be alone and get a beautiful view of the village from a completely different standpoint! It was actually great watching the village and its many visitors from a distance, without the noise and the crowd! Plus, you also get a better view of the castle.
Considering the number of visitors arriving in the village at lunchtime, we decided to have a quite early lunch break at the Font Café (first street on the left when passing by Castelnou’smain gate). Their terrasse tables are located on a street with no pedestrians and came with an extra shot of sun! Their summer salads and daily specials were delicious: I personally had their honey goat cheese salad which I loved!
I can definitely say this was a good choice although there aren’t lots of tables so you might want to get there a bit early to enjoy lunch with the sun.
All clouds have gone away by the time we finished lunch so we took an extra walk in the village before leaving. Here’s some extra photos 🙂
