Le Castillet, the 14th-century red-brick gateway tower at the north end of the old town, is the emblem of Perpignan and the most immediately distinctive building in the city. Originally built as a gate and watchtower at the edge of the medieval city, it stood at the point where the road from France entered the Catalan town. The upper floors now house the Casa Pairal, a small museum of Catalan folk culture: traditional dress, agricultural tools, religious objects, and craftwork from the Roussillon region. The collection is modest in scale but well arranged, and the building itself — with its visible prison cells alongside the folk exhibits — gives the visit a certain layered quality.
The tower is worth climbing for the rooftop view over the old town and toward the Pyrenees to the south-west. The red-brick construction, fired locally, gives the Castillet a warmth that the later stone architecture of the region lacks; from the outside it reads as Mediterranean rather than northern French. From the top, the relationship between the compact old centre, the Castillet at its northern edge, and the Palace of the Kings of Majorca on the hill to the south becomes clear — a useful orientation point before walking the rest of the city.