A bit of Spanish surrealism

I'm feeling Dali-esque

We got back from Spain exactly two weeks ago, but I haven't had time to finish processing it -- not to mention editing the pictures or writing about it! It seems like we hit the English ground running . . . so busy trying to catch up with all of the friends and family that we have no time to see during the school year. Our summer calendar, which I always imagine as white and wide-open, is all blacked out.

One of my dear blog friends described herself as a "sociable loner," and it seems like such an apt description to me (or should that be of me?). I need to unpack my suitcases and get back in touch with my loner side -- not to mention my blog friends. The sociable side feels as stretched as this reflection of Salvador Dali.

Teatre-Museu Dali

If you are ever in Figueres, or even close to it, I strongly urge you to visit Salvador Dali's Theatre-Museum. It is a completely over-the-top visual extravaganza created by the artist himself -- and truly unique, as this glimpse of the exterior wall reveals.

I'm not sure what the little golden man is meant to represent - was SD giving himself an Oscar? -- but those lumpish triangles are actually loaves of bread, and yes, those are eggs. Apparently, they were the fuel for Dali's creativity in more ways than one.

Bread has been one of the oldest subjects of fetishism and obsessions in my work, the number one, the one to which have I have been most faithful. (Salvador Dali)

Although Dali talked all sorts of rubbish, I agree with him about bread! (Bee)

As for eggs, I can't see an egg these days without thinking of the sad demise of Ralph and Lauren. When we arrived home from our Spanish vacation, they were reported missing by the neighbors. At this point, we have to assume that they are truly gone. Since the gate was closed, and no feathers have been found, we have to suspect hen-napping. It's all a bit surreal.

And for the first time in three years, I'm out of eggs!

Dali's table: in the Hotel Duran

I always like to know about the food aspect of things, so I was fascinated by Dali's special table at the Hotel Duran. Since we may never be in Figueres again, we opted for the Dali Smörgåsbord: Theater-Museum, jewelery display, and tour of Dali's Figueres -- which included his childhood home, his teddy bear, and his special "cellar" at this Figueres landmark. Anyone can reserve Dali's table, and observe the various pictures and other memorabilia on display. If you run out of vinegar (not to mention white wine), just help yourself from one of the casks!

As I was snapping this picture, the waiter suddenly emerged, like an apparition, from the darkness. The camera ending up catching what I hadn't seen -- a very Dali-esque effect, I thought. So much of his art deals with optical illusions, and he liked experimenting with lenses.

Jamón serrano

"the emblematic food of Spain"

This large pig haunch was displayed, rather luridly, in the middle of the restaurant. The waiter carved directly from it.

I suppose that Dali ate ham with his bread, but no one ever mentioned it.

Dali, Gaudi and pigs: the big three in Catalonia.

The Gala Dalí Castle in Púbol

(you can just glimpse the tower)

the Pyrenées loom in the background

According to the Dali myth, Gala was wife/mother/goddess/muse/queen to the great artist. Her face and form, often linked with mythological subjects, appear over and over in Dali's work.

I'm not sure if Muse is all that it is cracked up to be, though. Apparently, he wasn't the easiest man to live with. I got the impression that he didn't have much of a sense of humour -- for all of his love of trickery -- and that he was an egoist of the highest order. When persistently questioned, our tour guide revealed that he was often bad-tempered and known to berate Gala for her spending habits.

Nevertheless, Dali did buy his wife a castle -- complete with throne. Whether it was an act of homage, or penance, I'm sure it suited his own sense of self-aggrandizement and myth-making. The best bit is that he had to ask permission to visit. Well, supposedly.

Bon Bon and I thought that the castle was lovely, although given the chance we would probably re-decorate. Sigmund was underwhelmed by its dainty size, though, and kept referring to it as Gala's "semi." (Unlike Salvador, Sigmund does have a sense of humour -- particularly when it comes to taking the piss.)

It was a castle on a nice human scale. Quite unlike Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece -- La Sagrada Familia.

La Sagrada Familia

(still under construction)

My children are not the most willing of cultural tourists. (I think that we blew their fuses in Florence two summers ago.) Any kind of church or cathedral immediately provokes a powerful response -- but not of the sacred kind. It did sort of amuse me when my world-heritage-site-weary daughter said, "But why do we have to visit this church? It's not even finished."

I have quite the opposite response. Everything about this grand cathedrals fills me with awe. There is something about a project that won't be finished in a human lifetime -- or even several decent life-spans -- which I find unutterably inspiring, and yes, surreal. These ambitious projects transcend all of our petty human traits: greed, impatience, short attention-spans, the notion of private ownership. With a bit of luck (and lots of money), La Sagrada Familia might be finished . . . more than 100 years after Gaudi died.

Gaudi's work can be seen all over Barcelona, and although it is always described as "modern," it doesn't really suit my mental image (metallic, glassy and sleek) of that word. Supposedly, he drew his inspiration from nature's forms -- but they are terribly strange in his renderings. More often than not, they remind me of the witch's candy house in the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. Alluring, ornate and a bit nightmarish.

You can look and look . . . but it's as if your eye can't entirely absorb what it is seeing.

From far away, I zoomed in on this tiny piece of the Nativity in the Temple of La Sagrada Familia. Apparently, every little detail has meaning. I think that it looks a bit like an overfrosted cake from a distance, but all of that texture is fascinating if you can home in on it.

from the Facade of Birth

one of the many details

from the Temple of La Sagrada Familia

Mae West said that Too much of a good thing can be wonderful. But more often, I think that too much of good thing is probably just too much.

Contrasts of Catalunya

A slice of Mediterranean Sea on the Costa Brava

Our biking holiday was described as “Contrasts of Catalunya,” and I suppose it was meant to refer to that combination of mountain and Mediterranean Sea that you can find on Spain’s Costa Brava. The intense blue of sea and sky contrasted with green pine forests and palm avenues and a palette of yellow, which varied from brilliant sunflowers to the dull gold of haystacks and scorched grass.

Our accommodation was various, too. Nearly every day, the Headwater representative conveyed our luggage to a new dwelling, and after hours of biking we would discover that evening’s surprise lodging: a hotel set into the hillside, and so vast and winding that my daughter named it “Pan’s Labyrinth;” a beachside hotel whose décor hadn’t been touched since the early 1960s; a traditional farmhouse; and best of all, a converted castle as stylish as anything you might found in Northern California.

A bicycle still-life

We cycled through holiday trailer parks, a nature reserve, the occasional crowded highway, lots of farm land, orchards, modern cities and medieval hilltop villages. The views did change, but the smell of Catalonia was disturbingly consistent. Although there were brief whiffs of salty air and fresh pine, you could never really get away from the fact that the pork industry is central to Catalonia’s economy. We never actually saw any pigs, but we saw the signs of them everywhere. It must be said plainly: the smell of pig shite was, at times, overpowering.

I didn’t find biking to be very conducive to photography. Frankly, my biking skills weren’t really up to the no-hands approach and it was a bit much to ask eight other people to stop riding every time I spied something scenic. I wanted, so much, to take a picture of our long and colorful single-file of bikes . . . but I had to be contented with the posed line-up here.

The cycling (and occasionally singing) von Trapps

Indeed, I’m sure that I missed lots of gorgeous scenery altogether – as my eyes tended to point downwards, always inspecting the terra-not-so-firma for rocks and potholes. (Despite my vigilance, I got two flat tires – one of them conveniently near a pizza restaurant, but the other on a busy highway.)

Most of my best (and worst) memories didn’t get recorded on film, and already their intensity is starting to fade. I wonder what, after a few years, will remain in my memory file of Catalonia? So many of my favorite memories have to do with appeasing my appetite: eating the most delicious chocolate cake for breakfast; discovering that I like fresh sardines; smearing rustic bread with crushed tomato, olive oil and salt, in the Catalan way; sharing a seafood paella at a beachside restaurant; slugging down cup after cup of café con leche.

It always seems like mealtimes are erratic on holidays, either feast or famine. We ate three-course dinners late at night, and massive breakfasts early in the morning, before we wanted them . . . but we never seemed to get to lunch before a ravening hunger took hold. One afternoon, after a long, hot morning walking through Barcelona and playing tourist at Sagrada Familia, we stumbled upon a stylish tapas bar. I’m sure the food would have been delicious no matter what, but with the keen edge of hunger, the combination of meltingly hot seafood croquettes and chilled rosé wine was absolutely memorable.

My worst memories were physical, too – not so much about the belly, but more about the aching legs, back and neck. We were staying at a farmhouse the night before our longest bike ride, and I spent a sleepless night tossing and turning under an oppressive blanket of heat and raucous birdsong from the open windows. The next day, I was full of anxiety about 44 kilometres of “undulating landscape.” Undulating turned out to be a rather euphemistic word for hilly . . . and the scary thrill of hurtling down hills really, really was not worth the shuddering effort of forcing my bike up them. I took the following picture whilst taking a breather from climbing that very hill. I’m sure that the scenery was beautiful that day, but I spent most of my energy trying not to cry.

The undulating Catalonian landscape

Occasionally, we had such steep climbs that it was necessary to shift down to the dreaded 1:1 on our bike gears. We dubbed this the “Coco the Clown” gear, as it felt as silly and ineffective as a clown on a tricycle. You could push your bike by foot just as quickly, as I proved on more than one occasion.

A rather piercing memory is of biking slowly, ever so slowly, up a long hill which passed by a primary school. Some young boys hung on the wire fence and jeered at us. My friend, who speaks good Spanish, said that they were calling us donkeys. It haunts me still. Was that just a generic insult, or did it have something to do with our awkward, plodding progress? Perhaps I misunderstood their tone and they meant to be kind. Perhaps they were suggesting that we would be better off with donkeys, as did my dear friend Fantastic Forrest.

In this picture, my friend Bon Bon and I are smiling because her gung-ho husband had run over a patch of stickers. It’s not that we enjoyed his misfortune, but we were rather pleased to get an extended break as he patched his tire.

Bon Bon and me:

a rare sighting,

as we were usually on the other side of the lens

The mothers laughed the most; whined the most, too.

The children were quite stoical and mostly enjoyed the biking, I think. They were topped up with ice cream as often as possible.

Our gung-ho male companion – fearless leader, map-reader and general chivvier of lazy lasses – was philosophical about the ups and downs of hilly landscapes. Apparently, he subscribes to the idea that you have to take the rough with the smooth. I think that it says a lot about my character that I would just prefer to stay on the flat all the time. I’m obviously a Dutch biker by temperament.

Despite this claim, I did opt to climb to the top of the observation tower in the nature reserve. Anyone who has voluntarily agreed to wear padded lycra shorts might as well be a good sport.

Sigmund and me: looking all-pro