Today marks the start of the Mediterranean and final segment of our tour.
It certainly didn’t feel very Mediterranean as it was still raining in the morning and the winds were blowing at about 30 km/hr from the north. We had a very short day of about 40 km’s and one 300 m climb to Cadaques, the classic white plaster village of the coast.
The rain was forecast to stop around noon, the sun was supposed to come out, and the temperatures would start to rise considerably, so we spent the morning having a look around Figueres.
This is the ‘home town’ of Salvador Dali and there’s a large museum here dedicated to him. There is also a very large 18th century fortress on the hill overlooking Figueres so we thought we would give both of them a look before we pedalled away to the sea.
First up was the Fortress, and it was large. It also stopped raining by the time we got up there. Those are the highlights. To say the least we were underwhelmed after taking the standardized walking tour through the largely empty and sterile place. At least we had enough time to head back into town and have a coffee before our noon scheduled appointment at the Dali museum (we are slowly learning that it’s a good thing to book tickets in advance for popular places in Europe). As we were queued up to get in for the ‘12:00 tour’, the sun was now out in full force and it was heating up. The tourist scene was also heating up. This is a popular attraction, and from the looks of things, the main draw for tourists in Figueres (not including our famous El Motel!). Even though it was a Wednesday in mid June, this was easily the most crowded place we’ve been so far on this tour.
I think on a less crowded day we would have stuck around longer and had a better exploration of the eclectic Dali collection housed here. There was everything from mundane though to bizarre, and I’m sure everyone who came through will have a different reaction, but unfortunately our reaction, primarily driven by the crowds, was ‘see this quick and start pedalling’. So that’s what we did.
As you’ll see from the elevation profile below, it was a 25 km pedal across a flat, and pretty featureless agricultural basin formed by the confluence of a number of rivers as we headed to Roses on the coast. From there we climbed over the headlands along the Cap de Creus peninsula and then dropped down into the rocky mountain rimmed bay of Cadaques.
Several people throughout our trip have remarked how beautiful Cadaques is and how we were going to love it. We think they might be right. It’s definitely a coastal tourist town but the physical limits of the geography it keep it pretty small and the beaches are small and rocky, again limiting the amount of mass beach tourism that neither K are I are fans of.
The buildings were brilliant white, plastered against the brown and olive green hills. The sea was a deep blue and the sky a different hue, but still deep blue. And it was now officially hot (for us). We found our lovely ground floor apartment that was a block away from the water (and a serious push up rough cobblestone on impossibly narrow streets), let ourselves in with the help of the excellent instructions that were texted to us, cleaned up and then went for a stroll along the waterfront and just took it all in.
Dinner was at a waterside seafood restaurant, salad, razor clams, sea bass for K and monkfish for me. Almost exactly what we envisioned dinner by the med being … and a gelato on our stroll home along the waterfront.
We’re here for two nights and we can tell this is going to be very relaxing!
OK, I know this isn’t Jamaica, but on our stroll around town people watching, we know we’re in a beach town given the number of ‘beach dreadlock’ folks we saw. The full range from the 20 somethings who are off on their walkabouts through to the 60 something ‘California Dreads’ with the multicolour neon clothing and bleached coiffed dreadlocks, including their beards (I know coiffed dreadlock sounds like an oxymoron, but they exist … right here in Cadaques). This one worked for us today. Pretty cheesy video … so ‘70’s, but you’ve got to go with the original!
Great bike room at Hotel Emporda … home of El Motel!
About 2/3 of the way up the climb. Our road tops out on the saddle in the middle, it does not continue to the radar station and telecoms towers on the summit.
And in honour of Jeff Lebowski … a wonderful bottle of, The Dude. We have just discovered this varietal, Godello, when we got to San Sebastian. It is sensational with seafood and we’ve been getting it when we can.
10 months ago