Cadaques, to Figueres, and back home

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 7!

We spent the day at Cap de Creus, which is the part of Spain that sticks out farthest into the sea.  Given that Cap de Crues is the tip of a Peninsula, and that Spain/Portugal is a peninsula, we realized that, as we stood on those rocks, we were standing on a peninsula on a peninsula… on a peninsula. 

The weather reports called for a major storm in Cadaques on Saturday night.  When we got back to Cadaques in the afternoon, folks were pulling their boats out of the water, and Isabel asked us to move the plants down from the ledge onto the terrace.  We were ready and, frankly, I like a good storm.  I was looking forward to it.  The wind kicked up again, but we went to bed with no sign of rain.  I woke early to the sound of wind and rain falling on the roof—I love being in bed and listening to the rain.  But the Spanish version of a Nor’easter, it was not.  It stopped by the time we needed to load up the car and head out of dodge.

Our friends Darryl and Matt would be arriving in Barcelona on Sunday evening, and we wanted to stop in Figueres to visit the Dali museum on the way home, so we needed to get a relatively early start.  Well, early by our standards, which was about 11 am. 

Of course, as soon as we found a parking spot, several blocks from the Dali museum, it began to pour.  We had one umbrella and two rain jackets for the four of us, so we were basically drenched by the time we got to the museum and faced a thirty minute line to get in.  I have little patience for lines, and even less for crowds, but we stuck it out, knowing that we might never pass that way again.  Dali created the museum out of an old theater after he left his home in Port Lligat (right next to Cadaques) following the death of his wife and muse, Gala.  The roof of the entire building is adorned with giant egg-shaped sculptures and golden statues of women in a range of poses, appearing as if they are about to dive off of the building.

The interior, because Dali created it, is basically a visual autobiography of the artist—a tour of his mind, if you will, which, n my opinion, is a rather freaky place to be.  All of the dripping clocks and elephants on stilts made the place pretty accessible to the kids, but given that it was nearly as crowded as Times Square on New Year’s Even, we had pretty much had enough by the time we’d been there an hour.  Which was fine, because that was about all we had.  I will say this—although I’m not a huge Dali fan, I came away impressed by the range of styles in which he worked.

The kids were off today and will be off again tomorrow.  You have to love the way the Spanish do holidays.  Here’s how it works:  tomorrow, Tuesday is a holiday—La Hispanidad, which is actually the Spanish version of Columbus Day.  Whereas in the US we’d just move the holiday to Monday and create a three day weekend (which I’m sure the Spanish find strange), the Spanish celebrate it on the actual date, October 12^th. But it doesn’t make much sense to go to work on Monday and then have Tuesday off, so folks are given Monday off, too.  It’s called a puente, or bridge.  And to sweeten the pot even further, the kids’ school gave them off on Friday in order to have a professional development day for the teachers.  And voila—a one day holiday becomes a five day weekend.  I’m not complaining, and neither are the kids.

So Darryl and Matt arrived yesterday evening, and we eased into the day today, sitting around in our pajamas for hours and drinking coffee while the kids made collages and dinosaur videos.   We finally left the house at about 1 pm to stock up at the market, came home with our booty and made some sandwiches, and then took the bus up to Parc Guell in the late afternoon.  It’s a tourist magnet, but much more sane in October than in August, the last time I was there.  It’s a magical place.