Go and see the Sanch procession on Easter when people in black and red robes, peaked and masked, march in the streets. In town, you'll find one-off boutiques and hip bars filled with uni students, shops where you can buy some of the richest dark-red garnets, souks – yes, those North African bazaars – crowded with Algerians, small restaurants where you can wolf down garlic sausage or a Languedoc-style cassoulet and top it off with a serving of crème catalane, and a train station that, according to the late surrealist painter Salvador Dali, is the center of the world. But the one thing you're likely to find yourself wondering about, is whether you’re in France, Spain or Catalan. What a lark!