Day 102: Cadaques, Spain

Back in Spain! As much as I love France, driving back across the border this morning felt like coming home...

Today's journey took about 2 1/2 hours and was a fairly easy drive. Here is a distant shot of the Pyrenees Mountains as we drove along:




This area is called the Costa Brava which means Rugged Coast and the landscape is definitely rugged. This photo - taken from the car as we drove toward our destination of Cadaques - shows the olive trees that are all over this region.




Here is another view from the car as we approached the Mediterranean coast; there are tons of small coves and rocky cliffs.




Our hotel in Cadaques is perfectly situated in a small cove of the bay and our room has a balcony overlooking the water and the town. Here is the view from the balcony towards Cadaques.




After a few hours of grueling work lying by the pool, we decided to explore our surroundings and head to Cap de Creus, which is the easternmost point of the Iberian Peninsula and about 11 km north of Cadaques.

Here is a photo of the cape as we approached it - the pointy white building was a lighthouse and is now a museum and bar and the brown building on the right is a bar/restaurant where we stopped for a drink.




This is another "from the car" shot as we drove toward the cape:




This was our view (back down the coast toward Cadaques) as we sat enjoying an extremely cold Spanish cerveza at the cape-top bar:




We had a reservation at 7:40pm to visit the home (now a museum) of Salvador Dali, who spent a lot of his childhood in Cadaques and then spent about 40 years in the nearby town of Port Lligat, which is 3 km from Cadaques. The house was pieced together over the years from 7 different fishermen's cottages and was designed by Dali and his wife, Gala. Although it appears relatively "normal" from the outside, the house does have some white egg-shaped sculptures on the roof that you can see as you approach (not clear in the following photo). Eggs were a popular image with Dali and apparently symbolized birth/life.




The house is located in a small, very peaceful cove:




The design and layout of the inside of the house reflects both Dali's creative style and the fact that the house was cobbled together from multiple existing buildings. There are numerous rooms at varying heights with staircases connecting them. Here is Dali's studio with one of the original works still in it. When his wife Gala died, he abandoned the house and left two paintings there in the workshop unfinished.

The most interesting aspect of this room was that Dali invented a contraption whereby he could lower the painting he was working on into a cut-out space in the floor so he could sit in his chair and paint no matter how large the canvas. (Hard to see in this photo but this painting is on the structure that lowers.]




Here is one of Frank's famous wide-angle photos taken from one of the patios of the house, looking out towards the bay through a cut-out area in the wall.




One of the most famous rooms in the house is this oval-shaped room that was supposedly meant to mirror the shape of a sea urchin, which Dali apparently thought was the most perfect shape. By accident, the room has extremely interesting acoustics and any sound made in the room seems to echo and sound almost like it's coming through a microphone.





Here is Frank inside a broken Dali egg out on one of the patios:




This is the view back towards the bay from the highest patio area. Here is a perfect example of a very quintessential Dali image:




This is a teacup-shaped planter out on another patio:




This is the famous phallic-shaped swimming pool designed by Dali. This upper patio area is where they entertained.




I am sitting on a pink sofa shaped like lips, surrounded by plastic Perelli tire cutouts. Dali also had a thing for lips and for tires.




We loved the Dali house, particularly because it has tons of nooks and crannies and has so much personality. He was such a character, and it's interesting that he was from this area (born and died in Figueres, which we visit tomorrow) and spent so much time here. There are paintings of his that are of the bay in Cadaques and the church we can see up on the hill.

When we came back into town, the sun was getting lower in the sky and this was our view of the bay:




This is a photo of our Hotel from the tiny "beach" down below. Our room is the middle balcony room on the left on the top floor (almost invisible in this picture).




We had dinner at a restaurant recommended by my treasured Rough Guide, and it was perfect because we got to sit at a table upstairs in one of the balcony windows.

Here is one last view of Cadaques, lit up at night:



Another place in Spain to add to my growing list of favorites. This is such a peaceful spot and manages to have a bustling feel without being overly touristy. Too bad we are only here two nights! I could definitely spend a week with my fabulous balcony view of the water and the white buildings of the town...

ILM