Cerbère, a small border village in the Pyrénées-Orientales, is often wrongly perceived as a mere transit point. "There's nothing to see in Cerbère," is a common refrain, even at the tourist office! How many hurried travelers pass through this town without stopping, solely focused on their Spanish destination? This hasty perception, however, masks a very different reality…
Cerbère, nicknamed the "Gateway to France," is a great place to stop, and not just long enough to let customs check your papers or admire the view from the Col des Balitres (although I do recommend doing that). The old border post, covered in graffiti, sets the tone: Welcome to an open-air museum!
A kaleidoscope of urban art
Art manifests itself there in various forms: a vast art deco architectural heritage, a tunnel entirely covered in graffiti since 2007 and whose content is constantly renewed as you pass between the station and the beach, murals signed by local and international artists (Bulgaria, Poland, United States, etc.), remains of film sets, words and other clues to a desire to turn public space into art.
Here, works are made and unmade through art and the spider, often giant, with which a graffiti artist has covered many walls but also pre-existing paintings. Urban art is ephemeral by nature. You also have to go looking for missing works, such as this statue of an orange transporter that apparently vanished one night in November 2019… The village, more inhabited than it seems, conceals many secrets that I invite you to discover by wandering with me through its equally numerous staircases and alleys.
Cerberus: A name that defies interpretation
One of the first mysteries of Cerberus is none other than that of the etymological origin of its name. Does it come from the three-headed dog drawn in the Ribéral by David Gonzalez? This local boy has left his colorful mark on the walls of the beach and schools, and even on the book box. At his side, a Homer Simpson in traditional Catalan clothing, the plot, perhaps refers to Homer who describes in The Iliad and the Odyssey the capture of Cerberus by Hercules.
Does it come from the deer to which the artist Dorothée Clauss dedicated her superb fresco Locus Cervaria – in Latin, a place populated by deer – in a corner of a staircase, after having drawn three dog skulls at the start of the path that climbs towards the border? Or does the village simply take its name from the stone on which this village was built on the edge of the Rocky Coast?
Between myths, turtles and artistic creations…
Even the latest work is no exception. If you participated in our "On the Turtle Trail" scavenger hunt, you surely came across it in the Cerbère tunnels: a beautiful contribution from David Gonzalez to our Mar i Munt Autumn Week Special about turtles. What does this have to do with Cerberus? Well, the word turtle comes from the Latin tartaruca, "beast of Tartarus," which in Greek mythology is a synonym for the Underworld guarded by, let's see if you've been following along... yes, Cerberus.
In Cerbère, therefore, the walls speak, and if you want to listen to the stories they have to tell, our guided tours will resume in the spring. In the meantime, you can discover on your own around ten of the works that punctuate the route by downloading our Special Street Art Selfie Challenge.
It's up to you to create... Let the artist in you speak and share with us your best photos of Cerberus through your art!
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