We tried to get an earlier start this morning when leaving Avignon, as we had quite a long drive in mind, heading into Spain. About 380kms down to Barcelona – saving about 200kms by taking the Autobahn. We clocked over 20,000kms in Europe today. We had our first stopover at Figueres which is about 1.5hrs out of Barcelona.
Why Figueres, I hear you saying. Because that is the birthplace of Salvador Dali, and there is a Salvador Dali museum there. As you would expect there is everything on display, both the expected and the unexpected. Call us stupid, but a lot of his work we just ‘don’t get’. There is no questioning his skill, ability, and artistic license, but some of it just zooms strait over our heads. Having said that there was some amazing work, his early realism was incredible, his surrealism was truly weird but extremely cool. We were expecting to see more of his surrealism on display, but we were surprised by the amount of goldsmith type work that he did. And of course the famous Mae West with the ‘Lip Couch’, and hooded eyes, held centre stage.
A very cool museum with some very cool works. Regarding how the work was displayed it wasn’t up to the standard of the Matisse and the Picasso museums, as it didn’t give the same understanding of the chronology, or how he developed as an artist, or where his ideas and inspirations came from. We would expect with an artist as eccentric as Dali that there would have been Audio Guides to help with the understanding of his works, and perhaps that is why much of it passed us by.
Figueres obviously owes a lot to Dali, as you wonder what would be there if he hadn’t been born there. The whole town is a hub for Dali fans, and there isn’t much there that doesn’t pay homage to him is some way. As you walk around town, every available space is filled with over the top sculptures of considerable size, ranging from the weird to the ridiculous, but in a strangely quirky Dali way that is admirable in it’s own way. However the prices of everything is evidence that they are keen to make money out of his fame as long as they can. From Dali souvenirs, to tourist trinkets, down to the common snacks around town, everything is low on quality and high on price. It isn’t a case of every second shop being a trinket shop, it is more a case of four out of every five. If you intend to go there, and it is well worth it, take a packed lunch.
From here we moved on to the town of destination, Barcelona. Well it isn’t so much of a town, as a very large city. Thank God for GPS Jenny, otherwise we would have never found our way there.
Our accommodation tonight (and for the next few) is a monastery, and we are well impressed with it. When you book online you see a list of rules, which are then followed up by an email, and then reconfirmed in writing on arrival. The rules are things like; no eating and drinking in your rooms, you can take as much of the food on offer as you like but do not waste, no alcohol or smoking on the premises, no moving of furniture in your rooms, no removal of plants or animals from the grounds, complete silence between 2300 and 0800 hrs, and the gates are locked at 10:30pm. All of these are quite reasonable. And after some of the hostels we have stayed in it is quite nice to stay somewhere where there is no drunken loudness through the night, there are no TVs blaring from the room next door (there are no TVs), you don’t get a room reeking of stale, ingrained cigarette smoke, and there are wonderful gardens to wander through with the occasional animal to share the time with. On the down side, a double room means two single beds arranged foot to foot. But in the grand scheme of things, what is five nights in a lifetime. We can live with that … this time.
We went to sleep tonight to the sounds of a variety of birds, owls, and … police sirens.
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