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A Surreal Experience
Entry 8 of 61 | show all | print this entry |
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We left the Costa Brava this morning and drove inland a few kilometers to the town of Figueres, birthplace of Salvador Dali and home to the artist's famous museum. We had to wait about fifteen minutes in a queue before paying our nine euro admission, then entered and were immediately taken aback at the bizarre scene in front of us. The courtyard of the museum is almost worth the entry fee itself - bronze mannequins adorn the windows in various poses, a Cadillac - with a dummy in the driver's seat with two strange figures in the back - is eternally rained on from inside by pipes installed throughout the car. Behind the Cadillac is a tall tower of tires with a massive statue topped with his wife's, Gala's, rowboat. Apart from Dali's eccentric-icities, he was an amazing talent and the various galleries throughout the museum proved it easily. Neither Yvonne nor myself are art buffs (not in the very least), but this is one art museum that is so entertaining and interesting that you don't need to be. If you're in the area, you gotta come and check it out for yourself.
After lunch and a little more sightseeing in the town we continued on and stopped in Besalu, a medieval town with an ancient gate, complete with portcullis. It is very well kept but the throngs of tourists turned us off and made the city lose some of its appeal. When we see places like that it seems too fake, that it's just a tourist trap and not authentic. Nonetheless, it was a welcome stop. On the way to our campsite we made one last pit stop in Banyoles, a village that hosted the 1992 Olympic rowing events on its massive lake, and walked a portion of the perimeter. The water here is stunningly crystal clear. Many locals were out and about - parents with their kids in tow, couples holding hands, the old folks sitting on the benches - it was a really nice break.
One thing to note, as soon as we left the coast, the number of foreign visitors dropped sharply. Almost all the tourists seem to be Spanish. At the campsite we found near the town of Santa Pau, all were Spaniards but us and a Dutch couple with their little boy. The past couple of days have been pretty listless; we took the opportunity to just relax and keep me out of the sun to heal my sun-rash. The second campsite we found in the Bay of Roses area offered Wi-Fi for only six euro per day, so we caught ourselves up in the Internet world. Other than that, we've just been reading books (we're running out!), I played a little guitar for the first time on the travel guitar Yvonne bought me for a wedding gift, and also drew my first sketch since highschool. We suffered through another wind storm, which seem to be a common occurrence here. People pay no attention to them and go about as usual; it's pretty weird actually, because the winds are quite fierce at times. The rash is healing nicely, thanks to the cortisone cream and just staying out of the sun. We even had the chance to take in a movie on our laptop. We brought some movies along with us to watch in times like these. "Failure to Launch" was on the menu - it was a cute and funny movie, easy to watch.
Now that we're rested up, it's time to get to some action! More thumbnails ...
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