Before we talk about Collioure’s L’Eglise Notre-Dame-Des-Anges, or Our Lady of the Angels, we need to understand that the original parish church was a much smaller and humbler affair found in Collioure’s old town, which had to make way for a major new fortification project in 1672.

To protect Collioure from the Spanish, the French, who had inherited Collioure through the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659, Louis XIV order the famous architect Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis of Vauban, a famed military engineer, to lead and supervise a major rebuilding of Collioure’s defences.

Thus, Vauban built an outer fortification area and demolished over 50 houses and the church in 1672, which caused major protests by the locals. With their only church demolished, local worshippers had to have their religious services in the Dominican Convent (which is now the Celliers des Domicains winemakers and Jardin de Collioure restaurant).

Their people’s complaints were heard, and in 1679, Vauban designated a new spot for the church right next to the lighthouse. The first stone of the new church was placed by Vauban on 18 July 1684, and the construction was completed in 1690.

The Church was built practically at sea level in the southern Gothic style with a central nave lined by chapels and ending in a semi-circular apse. The standout piece was the grand altar, crafted by a Catalan sculptor named Joseph Sunyer in the early 18th century, which is surrounded by wooden altarpieces in each of the chapels - a total of nine, all shining in gold leaf and paint, keeping to the purest tradition of baroque art.

The church houses various treasures, which includes 2 processional crosses of silver and engraved wood (16th and 17th centuries), silver candlesticks (17th century), silver and vermeil (17th century), reliquaries of vermeil (13th, 14th, and 16th centuries), incense burners of silver (17th and 18th centuries) and copper alms dishes and processional staffs or maces (17th and 18th centuries).

The Bell Tower has it’s own older story to tell, since it was there long before the church and was  the main lighthouse for the port of Collioure. The original lighthouse was partially destroyed at the end of the Kingdom of Majorca’s reign.

Then, on its foundations, a taller tower was built towards the end of the 14th century, reaching about two-thirds of its current height. The thick walls suggest it was also meant to be a defensive structure and  a chain stretched from one side of the passage to the other could close off the port entrance.

The lighthouse was later transformed into a prison before the the church was finally built and they added an extra floor to convert it into the bell tower that we see today.

In the early 19th century, they revamped the top of the bell tower by adding an octagonal dome covered with a pink plaster, giving it the iconic look it has today.