Llivia and The Can Ventura Restaurant

During our September trip to the south of France we paid a visit to the Spanish enclave of Llivia which is situated close to the border of Catalonia, Spain in the French Department of Pyrénées-Orientales. The town of Llivia is very close, about 2 Km, to the French town of Bourge-Madame which itself is situated right on the border with Spain. The municipality is located on a small plain in the hills at an elevation of about 1200m.

There are no border posts and the only way you can tell that you have left France and entered Spain is by the change to the road signs.

Llivia is about 13 sq kilometres in area and it has about 1500 inhabitants and most of them speak Catalan. Many of its citizens also speak French.

http://www.exclave.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=9

We paid a visit on a very sunny Sunday afternoon and dined in the Can Ventura restaurant on Plaza Major. We had a wonderful meal of local saucisson, lamb and creme catalan washed down with a pichet of red Catalan wine.

The service was great and the atmosphere was very friendly. There was a large family eating on our floor but we were not neglected by the waitress. It was apparent that the family straddled the border as half were speaking Catalan and the other half French but French was the lingua franca.

The food and wine deserved  a prize especially when it came to value for money; we paid just 60 Euro for one of the best meals that we had on our trip. The restaurant only merits two knives and forks from the Michelin guide but it merits more from me. I guess that it loses a fork or two because it does does not go in for fancy presentation; they are more committed to taste. It's a pity that the Michelin judges don't recognise this more.

http://www.canventura.com/

If ever you are near the Spanish border in the French department of Pyrénées-Orientales then Llivia and the Can Ventura are worth a diversion and a visit.

We walked up to a view point and flying above us was a pair of Lammergeiers perhaps they thought that we had eaten too much and that we were about to expire - they are exquisite fliers.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ll%C3%ADvia