Salvador Dalí is a very strange man

And on with the story. The next few days were spent at our computers for the numerical modelling workshop. This was basically a room full of geologists and laptops and good ideas (and some not so good ideas mostly coming from my corner of the room =). After this I had a much better idea of what I was doing for my PhD and how it actually relates to what everyone else in the larger project is doing (sort of). But I guess you probably aren’t so interested in the workshop but rather sightseeing and other such things.

The day after the workshop finished we didn’t have much to do because my co-supervisor and the post-doc where driving people to the airports all day, so Joyce (a PhD student from Germany who is also part of the same research group as me) and I went for a walk around Cadaques and the area. We started off with a walk over to Port Ligat, the place where Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala bought their first house, a small rundown fisherman’s cottage. This evolved into a huge house which is apparently very strange inside but unfortunately we could not see because it was closed for the winter (ie Borthwick day). We could see the garden from up on the hill though and it was quite a back garden to have.

Port Ligat

Actually Port Ligat was pretty nice because there wasn’t really anything there except for Casa Dalí, a small hotel and some little fishing cottages. Oh yeah… and some boats. And cats. Lots of cats. Actually I was really happy about the cats because they were very friendly and I was in serious need of some cat-patting.

The view of Port Ligat and Casa Dalí… you can see some weird sculptures in his garden.

After a bit of a look around we walked back to Cadaques on a track that gave us the lovely view of Port Ligat that you can see above.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around Cadaques, looking at the church, listening to the sound of the bikes that are ubiquitous in Spain (hehe… when I called Maddy when she was in the Basque region I could even hear them in the background). So noisy! They really spoil the whole sunny, whitewashed walls atmosphere. The church on the top of the hill was nice but filled with tourists so inside all you could hear instead of the usual churchy silence was the “click, click, cachunk, beep, rrrr” of cameras. I put mine on museum setting so it didn’t make any noise, but it also didn’t take good photos. Not that it was that exciting inside, but since the advent of digital cameras I feel totally compelled to take a picture of everything I see. It is a terrible affliction.

Whitewashed walls and sun sans Spanish bikes.

Another important part of the say was to find an ugly postcard for Jesper. In case you didn’t know, whenever I go away I send Jesper the most boring, tacky and hideous postcards I can find. This is because I am mean and sadistic. No, not really… I think he likes them. And the one I found him in that day was a real cracker. It was of a flamenco couple looking terribly bored, and they had sewn a piece of material on for the skirt... a piece of fluoro-orange material. Blech!

So… I was talking about Dalí wasn’t I. Another day when we had a bit of time and needed to buy train tickets, we headed down into the smoggy valley that contains Figueres (and along that dreadful windy road again, though Jens was actually really nice and drove slowly for me). Since we were in Figueres we thought it an opportune time to visit the Dalí museum. And it was weird. So very weird.

The exterior of Musee Dalí.

I wandered around in a sort of daze discovering all sort of new things about Dalí. Like did you know he had a rock people phase. He has dozens of paintings of people made up entirely of rocks. And a nail phase. There is so much stuff of his that you never see. He really was amazingly talented even if I think some of works are absolutely dreadful. The building was amazing since he designed it, so the architecture was almost as weird as the artworks.

Inside a large atrium in the centre of the museum.

In the middle of the museum was a large atrium and courtyard, with more weird stuff. Like a car that if you put 1 euro in, it starts to rain inside on the statues sitting in it.

In the courtyard.

Actually the better one was when I decided to put a coin into another artwork, one of Jesus hanging on a giant mirrored cross (I am such a sucker for these things… I have to see what it does when you put the money in. I am exactly the type of person they make these things for =(. Immediately the hallelujah chorus blasted out at us and the cross started swaying. A bit hard to hide that you were the one who put the coin in when everyone in the entire museum can hear the religious strains booming out.

See I can be artistic too!

Severely Dalíed out we walked around Figueres for a while, which I have to say was just… well… nasty. It wasn’t a very nice town. Jens got upset because he bought a sandwich which after taken a bite he was certain was garnished with a crispy pig ear =). Ah Spanish food.

I decided to buy a book on Dalí cause I was curious to actually read a bit about his life. And yes… he is really, really weird. When staying in Paul’s apartment in Tuebingen, I found that he had “The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí” a so-called diary (but really I think most of it is made up and apparently so does everyone else). But I had to stop reading it because it was so strange it was giving me nightmares.

And with that I will leave you with a picture of the lovely Mae West apartment Dalí designed. I think I would be a little disturbed to sit on her pouty lips and even more so light a fire in her nostrils, but there you go.