The Dali Museum, The Mediterranean, and Vegan Tapas!
The town of Figueres, Spain is about a 35 minute drive from Girona. There is a lot of history there, but we only went for the Dali Museum. We did not want to spend the day in Figures, because we also wanted to visit Costa Brava. Costa Brava is what the coastline of northeast Spain is called.
Salvadore Dali is a genius! He worked in almost every medium you can think of. The museum is a bit crowded but not too crowded. When we were standing in line Sean said, “What is this? Aren’t we going to the Dali Lama Museum?” A little prep about Dali might have been good on my part. He loved the museum and is now a big Dali fan! What follows is a series of photos from the Dali museum. It seems to me that the Spanish like eclectic artists. Gaudi, Dali, and Picasso all push the boundaries in so many ways. It really makes you think about their intent when you stand in front of the work of both of these artistic geniuses. http://www.salvador-dali.org/museus/teatre-museu-dali/en_index/ The Dali Museum is on 4 floors. The top floor features works by artists other than Dali. These 2 paintings are by another artist. More by Dali are below. DNA! Once Sean got over his disappointment that he was not at a museum dedicated to the Dali Lama he loved it. Sophia enjoyed it from the start. Seriously, if you can think of a medium for art, Dali has probably created something using it! What a cool ring! Attached to the main museum is the jewelry museum. The guys did not want to go to it, but I did, so they went along. We all loved the jewelry museum. Jim parked our car across from the museum. The parking space seemed too good to be true. When we went back to our car there was a van parked in front of it and the car was covered in sticky drops. It was probably soda. We think we were not supposed to park where we did. It was better than a parking ticket! We have laughed so hard this trip. I am sure whoever sprayed the soda was upset. The 4 of us just laughed.
We left Figueres and headed to Costa Brava. We wanted to spend half a day on the East Coast of Spain, and get in the Mediterranean. It is a beautiful coastline. The Mediterranean is a beautiful blue color. It was colder than we thought it would be. It was saltier than the Pacific Ocean which surprised us. We all got in and the kids had fun with the peace donut! The first thing that happened when we put it down was that the wind blew it away. Good thing Sean is in shape. He had to run to catch it. Most of the people on the beach seemed to be tourists like us. Languages we heard were French, German, Russian and Dutch. Sean and I like to try different candies that you don’t see in the states. These are different types of Mentos. Sean was hungry, so he and Sophia went to get food. Sean ordered pizza and Sophia ordered pasta with sauce. It is the second time this trip that she has done that. The Spanish version of marinara sauce tastes like Campbell’s tomato soup if you don’t add water. We find it gross. I asked an Italian we met about the quality of Italian red sauce in Spain, and he agreed they don’t do it well. When they got back from eating Sean told Jim and me that something really embarrassing happened. Sean’s pizza arrived without being cut into slices. The waiter who delivered it was older. Sean said to the waiter, “Would you please cut this.” The waiter looked askance at Sean, then picked up his knife and fork, and said, “You don’t know how to cut?” Then the waiter proceeded to cut Sean’s pizza into bite sized pieces for him. Realizing what was happening, Sean said, “That’s okay, I got it.” But the waiter wouldn’t stop cutting. Instead he looked at Sean as he was cutting and said, “You like a baby.” Sophia of course was laughing at the whole ordeal. Of course this has been a running joke ever since. We have since learned that in France and Spain at least pizza is not cut into slices. When we left Jim put the peace donut in the back window, so we could drive through the Spanish countryside spreading a message of peace. Before leaving town we bought some fruit. The fruit in the North of Spain has been really delicious. The kids fell asleep in the back seat on the way back to Girona. It was quite a full day. We were hungry so we went back to B12 to have vegan tapas, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Restaurant-Bar-B-12/175203855832255. The food there was just delicious. We asked one of the owners, Jordi, about the movement for Catalan to separate from Spain. We heard from many people in this area about their differences from the Southern people of Spain. One of their gripes is that a lot of tax dollars come from Catalan, that are spent in the rest of Spain, not in Catalan. It is easy to see that happening. The area around Costa Brava alone must bring in many tourist dollars. The people of Catalan consider themselves more relaxed and easy going too. They are right about how friendly and easy going they are. How they compare to the rest of Spain, we don’t know. We have yet to leave Catalan. We are having that good of a time in it! After dinner, Jim and I walked the wall and the kids went to the room. We saw 2 people the entire time! Forgive any typos the wifi is not good so I am posting it while I can.
Check out my previous post from the Spain trip here.