And that’s a whole other box of monkeys
My head survived the night after, what we’ll call the ‘Tuesday night incident’, but my brain got further confused on Wednesday morning. Rodney had done a fair bit of packing up the night before, so we still managed to get away from Roses fairly early. But when we arrived in Figueres, we found ourselves driving round and round one-way systems, trying to find somewhere that wasn’t underground carpark with a 2m height limit, to park the lovely Eileen. We finally found a perfect, long, empty space in a side road and Rodney started his manoeuvring. A helpful old lady with a dog decided to stop and help and kept barking instructions at me in Spanish, which really was confusing for me and wasn’t helping Rodney in the least. When she was satisfied that he would do a good job, she toddled off, but looked back to check that all was okay. Thank you señora.
We had hoped to get to the Teatre Museu Dalí at 9:30am for opening time, but the parking search had stolen half an hour from us and we arrived at the ticket office just as two coach parties turned up. Dang! So the start of our visit was a bit of a crush, but we took so long ogling the spectacle of the inner courtyard that they moved on though and we were able to really enjoy Salvador Dalí’s crazy creations. Whiling away two hours in this amazing ‘theatre of art’ was easy; there is so much to look at and so much to amaze your eyes and your brain. There are statues balancing baguettes on their heads, melting clocks, an old black car with a busty statue standing on the bonnet, a tower of rubber tyres topped with a dripping boat and pictures that turn in to a different picture when you squint to look at them. In the Mae West Room there is a red leather sofa shaped like lips, two black and white paintings and a strange sculpture in the middle. When you climb up some steps and look through a frame of yellow fur, you realise you are looking at a face; it’s a brilliant illusion.
I always thought Dalí was purely a painter of strange subjects, but he also designed the whole layout of the museum; the whole place is a piece of art. He created art in all sorts of media, including film-making and writing and one small section of the museum is devoted to the thirty-nine incredible pieces of jewellery that he designed, along with their original drawings and paintings. There are massive paintings, ceiling frescoes, tiny drawings and around every corner there is something that makes you feel bamboozled and makes you go “Wow”. Down in the basement there is his crypt, he lies buried in his own theatre with so many of his creations all around him.
When you step back outside and wander around the old restored theatre, you see more and more of his surrealist innovations. There are gold statues on the roof, along with enormous eggs, all around an immense glass dome. What look like loaves of bread, are stuck in a pattern all over the walls. In the plazas and streets around there are more strange statues, the whole experience is sheer entertainment. Even if his art is not to your taste, after seeing this museum, you cannot deny the man had talent and was a genius. I’m not surprised that this museum is the third most visited place in Spain and we both came out with our heads exploding with amazement.
Back on the road we headed north and crossed into France, stopping in Perpignan to recharge our old French sim card. More confusion, this sim card, like our Spanish one, was too old, but the nice man at Orange spoke good English and with the purchase of a new sim he got us up and running again. Only trouble was, we were still trying to speak Spanish and couldn’t even remember how to say thank you in French! No doubt he understood our “gracias’, living so close to the border.
Continuing north we headed for Narbonne, where we had sourced a campsite that would be as close as possible to our old friends Bill and Lynne. We drove right round the west side and across the north of Narbonne, out to the tiny village of Salles de Aude. We were both pretty tired by now and pretty fed up and further confused when we got to the gate of the campsite, only to find that the place was derelict. That was a first! The next nearest campsite was almost at Beziers and we didn’t really want to head that far east. So we turned around, drove right back round three sides of Narbonne to the south side and down to Camping La Nautique on the Etang de Bages et de Cigean, a campsite that had been recommended to us. It was open, had vacancies and each expansive pitch has its own tiny bathroom, which is brilliant! We’ll definitely stay here for a couple of nights.
