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Cadaques, Spain

Another nice day and our next move. Vernon happened to be looking out of our big window surveying the days activity of which he noticed a distinct lack of action. He asked me to google if it was a public holiday – indeed it was Labour day. This made Vernon anxious as to whether the buses were running as he couldn’t even see the “hop on hop offs” that usually ferry tourists outside in ant world.

I suggested he ask reception to call the bus company as it all looked ok on their timetables on the internet. He was gone some time and when he returned he was relieved on two parts, a/ the buses were running and b/ that he had followed directions and gone to reception as it took them 8 different conversations in Spanish to get the confirmation!

Loaded with bags and backpacks we made the 1km trek through the underground subways, a few stairways and one station change to arrive at the main bus station. On route we got our tickets checked which was a bit of an anxious moment as yesterday we found that our combo Monserrat ticket was giving us free metro rides too – and again this morning – and we hoped it was legal as the subway police look pretty scary! Not sure what the story is, but the ticket keeps working and the security were happy with it!

Had a quick brunch before our bus left – no dramas in getting bus tickets at the statione. €23 for 3 hour ride. The bus whilst modern had very crammed seats like zero leg room for southern europeans I reckon. Driving through Barcelona suburbia all we saw were those ugly apartments and even the small towns not far out didn’t have house and section, but continued the apartment cheap industrial look.

We got great views of those snowy mountains again as we headed north, also colourful pockets of wildflowers especially red poppys. We also saw an olive tree nursery where there are very mature trees we assume for export. Paul from Seville told us that they export olive trees that are hundreds of years old to other countries like USA – having developed a method for successful transplant. They trim them back and kind of bonsai them from what I could see. Silly, but I kind of feel sad for the trees – I wouldn’t want to shift away from my roots and family if I had been there that long …..

Cadaques is only 22km from the French border and is a lovely surprise of fresh sea air, blue skies, and even bluer sea. It is the Spanish ‘Costa Brava’ and equivalent to St. Tropez (according to the blurb) but less crowded. There are Roman ruins nearby and a lot of history I have yet to brush up on. Terraced hills with slate, olive trees and quite a few grape vines for wine.

Our hotel room is perfect, with a balcony overlooking the bay. Its drenched in sunshine and walking distance to everything in this small town of about 3,000. We relaxed a bit then went for a walk with the intention of walking over the hill to the Dali house in Port Lilligat (20 minutes) but got lost, so we just wandered lovely streets, fell into a patisserie (was good), and then later found a ‘local’ style restaurant on a side street for a very reasonable meal.

We got three courses including wine and olives for €14.50 each, which I thought was very reasonable for a resort town. I enjoyed fresh Sardines and pork cheek followed by Catalan creme and Vernon had a spaghetti bolognese, meatballs with peas, followed by chocolate fondant pudding. The house wine was very drinkable too and we also got free bread! Satisfaction for sure.

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