Tue, May 24 A Visit to Dalí's House

Tue, May 24    We didn’t get up in time to walk around town, but managed to get downstairs for our scheduled early breakfast at 8:30. Stephan brought us warm halved baguettes with small tomatoes to rub on them with olive oil, the traditional way to eat bread in Catalunya. He also brought us salami and Serrano ham, cheeses and fresh squeezed OJ and home-made fig jam!

We set off at 9:30 and headed to the coast and a rugged neck of land that is the eastern most point in Spain. We drove through rolling agricultural land until we suddenly started driving up a steep mountainous road and got to over 1000’ to a windswept land of low gorse-like shrubbery with white rock roses, yellow poppies and low pink lotus. The famous tramuntana winds were blowing a gale, but the temperature was in the 80s, rather like our Santa Ana winds in Santa Barbara.

We reached the coast at the old fishing/artists’ village Cadaqués, a town of white-washed tile-roofed buildings set among jagged rocks and headed to Portlligat in a cove north of town, to find Casa Museu Salvador Dalí. This was the artist’s and Gala‘s (his wife) house, now a museum. It is very carefully and strictly run! We had to make a reservation on line for a particular time, in our case 12:30, be there to pick up our tickets by noon and had exactly 30 minutes to tour the house and a few more to see the garden and pool. This works quite well as it allows only eight people inside at one time.

We entered the house to be greeted by a stuffed and well-decorated polar bear and then saw the large library, bookcases everywhere and throughout the house in ingenious built-in shelves. Then we were taken upstairs and saw his workroom, a wonderfully lit space with the arm chair from which he always painted and an clever slot in the floor into which his large canvases could be lowered and raised so he didn’t have to stand up to paint! His last unfinished painting is there also. 

We continued into his bedroom with a mirror in the wall so he could see the sun rise from bed…and be the first person to see the sun rise in Spain! We entered the Sala, an oval room which when you stand and speak in the center of it, your voice echoes all around. We went out to his garden and saw one of the famous eggs and finished with his phallis-shaped pool surrounded by fantastic decorations.
  It was quite a trip!

As we walked back to the car we stopped at a beach shack, with full bar, of course, and split a delicious bocadillo of pork loin and a plate of French fries. The wind blew dust all over everything, but it tasted great anyway.

Hil drove us to Cap de Creus, a very craggy cape of land where the rocks have been carved into amazing shapes by the winds. We hiked a ways in the blasting wind, looking down into bright blue bays and sat in the shelter of the lighthouse for a bit before returning to Sant Llorenς for a rest.

  On the way we passed another few miles of prostitutes stationed by their umbrellas. Hilary heard that the government has ordered the women to wear fluorescent green vests for their safety as they wait for customers on the busy highways, not that we saw anyone doing that, but it‘s a nice idea! What a country!!

Hilary and I took a walk around town, admiring the flourishing small garden plots that surround the town walls and moat, most being tended by the older people of town. The young may have fled to the big city, leaving the town to their grandparents and second homers.

We had another pleasant dinner outside in the warm evening of fennel soup, Caesar salad, roast chicken for Bob and me and steak for Hil. Stephan and his wife are extremely nice and helpful; this is a wonderful place in which to stay.