The Long and Winding Road

We strive hard not to cut corners or settle for less, and when it comes to car camping in Europe, that mantra is no different... regardless of the result. Cadequés had been a daytrip. A stopping point between Barcelona and the South of France. However, we had two nights to kill. So after Cadequés we set out for neighboring Port de la Selva, which is the next harbor north.

This worked out well. While Port de la Selva doesn't maintain a distinct character or charm like Cadequés, it is still an amazing location, complete with lighthouse. I love lighthouses! So naturally, we chose a camping spot in the parking lot beneath that glorious giver of light.

Once parked, we mixed up some cocktails in the trunk from the mobile bar (some things don't change on vacation), picked the pointiest point in the trio of harbors and set up our dinner picnic with 270° views of the Sea. Paella rice, fresh bread, fresh avocado, fresh tomato, pesto, some delicious sauteed peppers and chicken Ali whipped up in Barcelona, and a bottle of wine. Perfect.

We ate and drank and laughed, took in the sweeping views and then realized, despite the sun having just set, that 10pm had come and passed and therefore returned to the car for a good night's rest. This didn't happen, however, because Costa Brava in the summertime is hot (shocker), Pepé (the car) doesn't have good ventilation, and the area we picked to sleep was scarce on people, but heavy on mosquitos. This meant suffer the wrath of the heat or suffer the wrath of the mosquitos. We eventually chose the mosquitos and I somehow sank into five hours of rest. Ali's tally for the night... one. Maybe.

Needless to say, Ali was a bit tired the next morning, but she was a trooper. After a dazzling sunrise over the Mediterranean, we drove the winding road from Port de la Selva to Sant Pere de Rodes -- a former Benedictine monastery a few thousand feet up the Pyrenees over Costa Brava. Mentioned as early as 878 A.D., Sant Pere de Rodes is considered the cradle of Catalan Roman architecture, and is a remarkably well-kept structure featuring ample construction and artwork dating back to the 10th Century. With an extensive blueprint, we spent over an hour exploring the terraces, naturally-cooled cellars, cathedrals, courtyards and crypts of the isolated sanctuary high above the Spanish coast.

All good things must end though, and we left the halls of two millennia ago in search of new adventures. Unfortunately the next day and night were hardly worth the telling, and even had they been, would have little sway over our next, planned destination...

All That We Perceive

Safe to say that anyone who believes in Intelligent Design would have to agree that God spent a little more time on Cadaqués. Fleeing the mania of Barcelona, Ali and I maintained the same, alert sense of paranoia that may've kept us entirely out of Barcelona's dubious, criminal statistics. However, the closer we came to Cadaqués, the more marvel distracted us and by the time we hit the sleepy little harbor in Catalonia we were nothing shy of sheerly awed.

We abruptly left the major highways and found ourselves on perilous, winding roadways akin to the grand prix track we found between San Sebastián and Madrid. Only the views the whole way out were too unbelievable for my inner-road demon, and my childish-wonderment favored seeing what lay around us instead of conquering what lay before us. What was below us was the whole of Spain, for a hundred miles or more from the coast. These were, afterall, the Pyrenees.

Down the hill entering the city we were met by a hilly lowland nestled between the steeper, coastal mountains and the Mediterranean. In this area, no larger than a few square miles, lay the red-roofed, white buildings of Cadequés, a town of under 3,000 locals.

Salvador Dalí once made it his home and it's easy to see why. Once on the coast, his dashing statue greets you as though you've found something as hidden and mystical as his paintings. Boats bobbed in the clearest, seafoam green water we've ever seen. Classic Mediterranean residences, such as the famed Casa Blava, met the stone streets that dropped into the sea. Trees grew out of the fortified walls as though the harbor itself birthed the town. It was a surreal place of perfect pleasure and quintessential serenity.

After walking the walls above the harbor from one side of town to the other, Ali and I settled down in a cafe and immediately questioned whether we were still alive. The service was actually service. With a smile! We were floored, and it put us at ease enough to enjoy our beers and coffees, and spend an hour watching local children kick around the footy in the cobblestone courtyard. This was the Mediterranean the way we'd always imagined it. If only for a day.