Tranquility on the Rocky Coast of Spain- Cadaques

For our last bit of time in Spain we headed up the Mediterranean coast to Barcelona and Cadaques. Cadaques, which is less than an hour from France, was made famous for being the town where famous Spanish painter Salvador Dali made his home. It is a small town that used to be primarily a fishing village but now is a relaxing holiday destination. It is one of the picture perfect villages on the Mediterranean Coast that you see in vacation magazines. The houses are painted white and the doors and windows are blue.

Cadaques was a rejuvinating place where we spent most of our time reading, talking and sitting on overlooks watching the bay at different times of the day... noon, sunset and night time.

We rented a small apartment tucked into a small street.

Here's the kitchen corner nook with Chad hard at work.
Here's Kari relaxing on the sofa. Upstairs was a small loft with a bed.

We didn't quite have views of the bay, though we were quite close.

We did have a small artist colony workshop below our apartment.

We had some great food, both at home and out on the town. We ate lots of Spanish cheese and of course sampled the local wines. Here's a fantastic salad dinner Chad prepared for us.

Quite festive!Chad was inspired by the airs of Salvador Dali in Cadaques!

For another meal, we ate a Paella mixta in a local restaurant. It's similar to the paella in Valencia in that it has seafood, but it's with brown rice not a saffron.

YUM!!!

The owner of the restaurant made it clear that he's not Spanish but rather, Catalan.

The autonomous community of Catalan is currently asking for its independence. Who knows if it will ever happen, but there is quite a sense of pride in Cataluna. In fact, the signs are mostly in Catalan, and some children don't even learn Spanish in school!

We went on a hike one day to the Cap d'Creus, a lighthouse overlooking the sea.

Here's Kari setting out:

Here's Chad inspecting the trail:

The terrain was interesting- a mix of cacti (ouch!!), olive trees and scrub brush.

There were also many beautiful views of Spain's Costa Brava and the Mediterranean along the way.

Along the trail, we passed Dali's house, which is tucked into a bay in Cadaques.Salvador Dali was originally from Figueres, which is less than an hour from Cadaques. Later in his life, the town donated the delapidated town theater to him, which he turned in to a musuem for many of his works. It was a great museum with too many photos to takes. Here's a picture of one of the sculptures in the patio of the museum.

After our visit to Figueres and Cadaques, we took a bus south to Barcelona for a couple of days.