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Cadaques, Spanish Costa Brava

January 17, 2002

Dear Family and Friends,

We arrived in Cadaques Tuesday afternoon. As usual, our first task was to find a place to stay. Rick Steves had recommended two places, "right on the town square". Good idea but both were closed. Off-season you know. In fact, the whole town seemed pretty well shut down for the winter. We continued driving on the beach road and found a two-star hotel, overlooking the bay, with lots of activity. Great. Oops, spoke too soon. The activity was a renovation getting the place ready for the spring and summer tourists but the workers said there was a place around the next bend.

In fact, it was around a bend, up a street and down an alley. And it was deathly quiet. But, it was open and, as their only guests, we were given a very nice room with a balcony that did, in fact, overlook the bay. Great. Really.

Now, what would we do for our four-day stay? We wanted a break from city touring and we had it. We decided there were just two things to do: walk and eat. We did too little of the first and too much of the second but I'll give a few more details.

Our first and most ambitious walk was over the hill to Port Lligat where we saw the house of the famous artist Salvador Dali. Like much of the rest of the local attractions, this was closed for the season but we could see the sea view Dali had when he painted, a view which actually appears in several of his works. We cover more on Dali in the next episode, where we describe our visit to the Dali museum in nearby Figueres.

After our pilgrimage to the Dali house, we wandered through the narrow streets of the old part of Cadaques. It's a small place of maybe a handful of tiny streets and alleys, dominated by the town church. During this time of year, it is almost empty. Most houses throughout the area seemed to be boarded up for the winter but we could imagine a different scene when everyone descends on the place in the hot Spanish summers.

We walked along the stony beach and Marianne tried her hand at rock-skipping. Pretty good, for a girl. The water was crystal clear and we could imagine a refreshing dip - in another season. Right now it's pretty chilly, especially if the wind picks up off the nearby Pyranees. The view of old-time fishing boats with the brilliant whitewashed town behind called out for pictures. I have to admit however that the picture does not do justice to the reality.

For our meals, we generally took the ten-minute walk into town. The walk to and from made us feel less guilty about eating and, as small as it is, Cadaques has very little parking. In fact, driving anywhere in the area was hard because the streets and alleys also had very little room. That's why the most popular transportation seemed to be motor scooters -- and feet.

Of course, we were the first ones in evening restaurants because we were hungry by eight p.m. when early dinner started. Later, we discovered the real secret, which is to eat at 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon and then pass on a heavy meal in the evening. If we continued with two of these meals a day, we would definitely need a new, bigger, car. After dinner, the walk back allowed us to see the town sparkle in the dark.

So that was our routine. Walk a bit. Eat. Repeat. We did also catch up some on our writing but once one adjusts to not doing much it's hard to do anything at all. There's always another day.

Take care. Stay healthy. Walk to dinner.

John and Marianne

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Created January 25, 2002

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