Today we had one thing to accomplish (well, every day, we have one thing to accomplish, but this one didn't take 9 hours): get to the Casa-Muséu Dalí by 10:30 am for our 11 am reservation. We were told, variously, that the walk would take 20, 25, 30, and 45 minutes. It took 15, so we were about 10 minutes early even though we left the hotel about 15 minutes later than we'd planned. That was after breakfast: this morning, it was a croissant, a white roll, a package of toasted bread (we're saving those for the trail tomorrow), with jam and butter and juice and coffee.
We'd been told ahead of time that we had to have reservations for the Dalí house, and once we got there, we understood why: it's a real HOUSE, and the rooms are small. No more than about 10 people can stand in the entry at the same time. When the 11 am group (including a floopy journalist who couldn't seem to keep her things collected, including her wits) went in, the guide asked us what languages we wanted: our group wanted Spanish and English. There was even another American in our group - one of the very few we've seen. (Actually, I think the only Americans we've seen since Barcelona have been here in Cadaqués.) The tour isn't guided, but there are four parts of the house and you're only allowed 10 minutes in each one, so that you're on to the third part before the next tour starts 20 minutes after you. We took lots of pictures. The views from the house were beautiful, and the décor was weird in a Dalí way: stuffed swans (who died of natural causes, they insisted), a stuffed polar bear in the entry, a stuffed eagle, many egg-shaped items, including lots of rocks; a room full of cupboards covered by Gala with pictures of herself and Dalí, a wonderful sitting room with a rotunda ceiling with great acoustics, and bench-like couches around the walls; the swimming pool surrounded by Michelin men, sporting a red lip sofa, many stuffed snakes, the light from a lighthouse, among other things; a cracked egg in the garden in which you could stand (and get your photo taken, but we didn't); a yellow sitting room; a bedroom with a mirror so you could see sunrise from the bed... the whole thing was predictably over the top. The artist's studio contains two half-finished paintings that Dalí was working on when Gala died, at which point he left the house and never came back. He had a mechanized easel so he could paint sitting down, and bring the part of the painting he was working on to his level.
After the museum, we walked back into town and saw the Blue House, a modernista dwelling that is apparently still occupied by real people - there are no tours or anything -- so we just took pictures of the outside. Then we scouted places for dinner before heading to the Museum of Cadaqués to see their current exhibit, which was of Dalí work from his early life: 1914-1928. It was interesting especially because all of the information was in Catalan so trying to figure out what we were looking at, and why, took a lot of study, but I think we got a good bit out of it. It seemed like his sister Anna Maria was a big partner in crime for him; it seems like he was an imp from the time he was born (much of his early sketches were made in geometry and physics school texts, and the later ones seemed to be on the backs of invoices). There were cubist sketches, surrealist sketches, sketches of soccer players...really fun to see the breadth and development of the work. One word we learned was "doll" -- which is a water jug that women would fill at public fountains and carry home on their heads. Dalí apparently loved this idea and did lots of pictures of women carrying these doll.
After the museum, we got some tapas and sangria at a restaurant on the street side of the beach, near the plaza. It was called Tapas S'Entina. We had baby squids with an egg (all the eggs at the Dalí house must have given us the idea) and an empadrat (sp?) which was kind of like a ceviche with white fish, white beans, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. There was also bread with tomato salsa. They always bring you and charge you for bread, just like they bring and charge for napkins in some places in Asia - kind of like a cover charge.
After lunch we went up to the church of Santa Maria, which is Baroque. We tried to puzzle out who the saints were because they weren't labeled, but Lisa has forgotten too much of her art history to get much beyond St. Sebastian and St. George. We donated 2 euros to the church -- probably because it was the only place we've been that didn't charge anything.
After the church, we went to the grocery store to provision ourselves for tomorrow's walk: another sausage, a third water, and some candy to help alleviate dry mouth. Other interesting things we saw at the store (interesting to us, anyway): gazpacho sold in jars or milk-type cartons; more of the wines we've been served (Torres, and the one we had at Casa Clara as well, for half the price, naturally); a loaf of bread shaped like a door from Casa Batllo; and shopping carts that you could carry or drag along on wheels. The people watching here is good; the people-watching at the grocery store was potentially even more interesting, because the cheapest tourists seemed among the most common clients. One guy (clearly not a local) forgot his money and had to go back for it, which jammed up the works at the checkout lines.
Tomorrow's walk promises to be much easier than yesterday's: just 12.5 Km and an easy grade (as opposed to 16.7 Km and a moderate grade).
We took naps, and Linda took a bath, and now we're getting ready for dinner. We decided we want an escalivada salad of roasted vegetables and a fideuà (like a paella but with noodles instead of rice). We found three restaurants that have what we want - we'll check them out and pick one.
We have also found a bakery (wasn't hard; it's right across the street from the hotel) where we can buy bread for tomorrow's trek.
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