Picos de Europa

Well, yesterday we spent the entire day at Picos de Europa (the largest national park in Spain). The views were magestic!!! The below pictures do not do the park justice, but I hope you enjoy them anyway.










By the way, we did stay at a lovley British couples house... those pictures are gorgeous, too.

Elizabeth´s bedroom

Elizabeth´s bedroom

Views from Elizabeth´s bedroom

Parador de Santo Domingo (a/k/a a castle turned into a hotel)...

Yesterday we went to Dinastia Vivanco, which is a winery in Briones, Spain. We took a tour of the vineyards, the winery, and the Museo de la Cultra del Vino (a museum). The sheer volume of wine that is made at Dinastia Vivanco was overwhelming! Even though the guided tour, of the winery, was in Spanish, we learned some interesting facts and enjoyed sampling some exquiste wines :)









I will let Sean tell you more about the winery, since he is the wine expert on this trip.

After the winery, we drove to Parador de Santo Domingo, which is a castle that was turned into a hotel (we are referring to it as a palace... since that is what it looks like). It is amazing that in less than 24 hours we went from staying at Guillermina´s to staying at a palace!!!







Today we are heading towards Picos de Europa, which is one of the best national parks in Spain! We are not sure if we are going to spend one day or two days hiking, but we are all very excited about this leg of the trip. Since this is tourist season at the park, we tried to call ahead to reserve a room for tonight and we are fairly certain we are going to be able to stay at the house of a pleasant British couple :) We considered staying in a shepherd´s hut, but it appears that we would have had to reserve a hut in advance.

Once again, we are not exactly sure where we are going to be staying today, but we are looking forward to the adventure that lies ahead!!

Staying at an elderly woman's house...

Well, so far we have stayed in Barcelona, Spain for two nights; Cadaques, Spain for one night (on the way out of Cadaques I decided it would be a good idea to scrape the right side of the rental car along a stone building [for those of you who know us well, the "I" refers to Elizabeth Dennemann not Chris Welch... surprising, I know :)]  ... I guess we won't be getting that deposit back!!!!); Perpignan, France for one night; La Seu d'Urgell, Spain for one night; AND San Sebastian for two nights (last night and tonight).

Most of the places we have stayed, thus far, have been rather pleasant! That said, we are currently staying in an elderly womans home!!!!!!!!!! We knew San Sebastian was going to be an extremely busy town, but we did not realize that ever hotel, hostel, and camp ground was going to be booked. We arrived in San Sebastain in mid-evening, so the three of us decided to divide and conquer our immediate tasks at hand... find somewhere to park the car and find somewhere to sleep for the night. We decided Sean would find a place to park the car, while Welch and I tried to locate a place to lodge for the night.

Around our twentieth "there is no room in the inn", we began to feel a lot like Mary and Joseph on Christmas Eve. However, when we were seriously considering just crashing on the beach (even though it is only about 10 degrees celcius, which converts to about 50 degrees fahrenheit), we were approached by an elderly woman. She stated she rented rooms and wondered if we needed a room for the night. We took down her name and phone number, but continued our pilgrimage to find lodging. Finally, after our thirtieth "there is no room in the inn", we broke down and called Guillermaina (the elderly woman we previously met).

All three of us, and Guillermania, boarded a local bus and rode to her house. There she showed us a room that contained two twin beds and a private bathroom... she suggested we lash the two beds together with rope and then all three of us sleep in "one big bed".

Even though Welch was intrigued with the private bath and the private balcony AND Sean mentioned how "very cozy" we would be for the night, we asked Guillermania if she had any other rooms available. She then showed us another room that contained 4 beds, but no private bathroom. Discussing the fact that we had no desire to share two twin beds and we had no desire to freeze on the beach, we decided to take the room that contained 4 beds and share a bathroom with two guys from Finland!!!!!!!!

Right around this point, Sean told Welch and me that we had FAILED completing our task, and he had SUCCESFFULLY completed his task :)

Although it was not the best night of sleep any of us ever recevied, we were not huddling together on the beach trying to stay warm :)

ANDORRA

Most people don't know that there is a country on the border between Spain and France called Andorra.  It is one of six European "micro-states," countries that have not been absorbed by the bigger guys at some point over the years.

Andorra (wikipedia article here) is about 2.5 times the size of Washington, D.C. and basically consists of a string of small villages in a single valley in the Pyrenees Mountains. 

One of my goals for this trip was to go to Andorra, so away we went!

The drive was terrifying, and I was behind the wheel... yikes!

Some typical driving shots of the area from the same region, following day...










































The country's capital, Andorra la Vella, was surprisingly large and bustling (considering the small size of the country itself).  Lots of chain stores, high-end stuff, and tourist-centered businesses.  Sean and Liz remarked on the drive into the capital that the other small towns of the country reminded them of Gatlinburg... a little too tacky-touristy for their tastes.  We also noticed how NEW a lot of the buildings were throughout the country.


The capital city!!!

Buildings built right up to the edge of cliffs.  There were a lot of cliffs and boulders that buildings were just built around in the city.  Very cool.

One more shot from the city.  Here we are along a pedestrian bridge crossing a river.

And that was our quick visit to the sixth-smallest country in Europe!!!  We drove in, walked around briefly, and decided to drive out and on into Spain to spend the night in La Seu d'Urgell.

Dali´s Theatre-Museum and Southern France

From Cadaques we traveled back over the mountains towards Figueres for the final point of the Dali Triangle, El Teatre-Museu Dali.

Dali was born in Figueres in 1904 and, although his career obviously took him all around the world, he lived most of his life in this region of Spain.  Formerly the city´s Municipal Theater, which had been gutted by fire in 1939 towards the end of Spain´s civil war, Dali converted the building into a combination art gallery and fun house between 1961 and 1974.  Containing a significant portion of his life´s work, including the famous Soft Self-Portrait with Fried Bacon and Portrait of Picasso, as well as numerous large scale works or installations created specifically for the space.

The main entrance of Teatre-Museu Dali, complete with classical sculptures with loaves of bread on their heads or the square´s centerpiece sculpture built from various objects, including a large fake egg, Greek friezes, and driftwood.

 Side view of the Teatre-Museu, painted pink and with large eggs and stylized Oscar statues atop.  The yellow dots covering the walls are small golden loaves of bread.

Individual sculptures and paintings in a large room become...

a sculpture of Mae West when viewed through a special lense.

G

Gala Looking At the Mediterranean Sea which becomes a painting of Abraham Lincoln when viewed through special coin-operated viewers (or when one just squints).

Self-Portrait with Fried Bacon

From here we drove north over the boarder into France and stopped for the night in Perpignan, and cute town near the sea.  From here, we visited a Cathar fortress and drove through the micro-state of Andorra, but more on that later.

Dali´s Castle and Arrival in Cadaques

We´ve left Barcelona, but a blog post will be put up at some point describing what we did. On Monday, we said goodbye to Barcelona and hello to the open road. We rented a car and headed NE out of Barcelona, stopping only to grab a really terrible lunch in a hole-in-the-wall cafe in some town that barely has a name. Despite the waiter/chef/cashier´s assurances to the contrary, I maintain that the strange transparent strips of matter on our side salads were some form of plastic.

Regardless, after lunch we arrived at Castell de Pubol, just outside of La Pera, Spain. Forming the southernmost point of Catalonia´s ¨Salvador Dali Triangle,¨ this castle complex was purchased by Dali in 1968 as a present for his wife, Gala. Husbands take note.

After undergoing extensive renovation and stabilization, as only Dali could, the castle served as Gala´s private residence until her death. Dali was only permitted to visit at her express invitation, which was probably a good idea due to her fondness for the strapping farm hands in the area. Surprise visits would have just cramped her style. Gala was entombed in the crypt below the castle, and Dali live there for a significant portion of the rest of his life.

Dali painted the ceiling so everytime Gala looked towards Heaven, she would think of him.

What better way to cover up two unsightly radiators than with a door painted to look like to radiators...

The pool´s fountain, complete with numerous busts of Wagner 

From La Pera, we headed to Cadaques on the Mediterranean Sea. Dubbed a ¨grandiose geological delirium¨ by Dali, who summered here as a child and spent much of his later life in a nearby town, this lovely whitewashed vacation town and rocky bay sit nestled in the very tail end of the Pyrenees. With pebble beaches, excellent sailing, and a history of high profile vacationers, including Walt Disney, Mick Jagger, Picasso, and the Duke of Windsor (which would make quite the dinner party), Cadaques is still popular among Europeans looking for a nice coastal holiday. It was here that Dali met Gala and convinced her to leave her husband and run off with him. Since she got a castle out of the deal, it was probably for the best.

 Cadaques, as viewed from the white-knuckle, heart-attack-inducing drive through the mountains

From here, we head West towards Figueres for the final stop stop on the Dali express, the Teatre-Museu Dali. Stay tuned.

Arriving in Spain!!

Sean and I (Elizabeth) flew out of the USA on Friday, July 16th and arrived in Barcelona on Saturday, July 17th. We went to check in at the hotel (by the way... it was the only hotel we had reserved in advance for this entire trip) and discovered the room was not yet ready for us. We then decided to wander around Barcelona and happened upon a open air market.

There were many sites to be seen, smells to enjoy, and foods to taste. Before ordering any food (which was the first time I was forced to speak Spanish) Sean and I stumbled upon a stand that sold meats. As you can see in the below picture, we were able to purchase the pig, the hat, or the hat AND the pig... however, we chose to purchase none of the above :)

We then strolled along the Rambla (which is a large street that runs in the middle of the area) and were sorely disappointed when we discovered we could not urinate or defecate in public!!!!!!!!!!!!