Cactus flower shows Message From a Cactus

Message From a Cactus

The other night we received a message from a cactus and I laid in bed unable to sleep thinking about it. The cactus stands in the narrow passage at the back of our house in Cadaqués in an old pot among several plants we don’t always remember to water. Who do they belong to? They […]

Marsha illustrates the day Gorge Harrison climbed the wall

THE DAY GEORGE HARRISON CLIMBED THE WALL

  The day George Harrison climbed the wall at Salvador Dalí’s surreal summer house didn’t take place for another week and during those seven days a large number of red roses crossed the village. It began one sultry afternoon in 1971 when Dalí returned to Cadaqués with Carlos Lozano after inspecting the geodesic dome being […]

The Casino Bar in front of the HIDDEN HILLS OF CADAQUES

THE HIDDEN HILLS OF CADAQUES

1984. Late spring. Armed with a hand-drawn map, a bag of figs and some tangerines, we set out to climb what our friend Eloy Ferrer had called the hidden hills of Cadaqués.  The journey by train from Barcelona to Figueres took two hours and two more over the Big Dipper of a road with the bus fishtailing […]

ancient rocks illustrate THE BIRTH OF CADAQUES

THE BIRTH OF CADAQUES

The birth of Cadaqués did not come about by chance. In the year 945, thirty years after the completion of the great monastery Sant Pere de Rodes, the wily abbot had a plan. With a party of broad-shouldered monks, the abbot set out on the sixty minute journey from the gates of the monastery, down […]

Dali holds Josep Pla illustrating JOSEP PLA WAS MY FIRST SPANISH TEACHER

JOSEP PLA WAS MY FIRST SPANISH TEACHER

Josep Pla was my first Spanish teacher. If I drop the odd anachronism into the conversation, don’t blame me, blame the great Catalan writer, journalist, bon vivant and, it has been said, forerunner of magic realism.  It all started after spending Semana Santa climbing the dirt track to Sant Pere de Rodes with my wife […]

Illustration shows CASA ANITA IN CADAQUES

CASA ANITA IN CADAQUES

Casa Anita in 1984 was still a well-kept secret, The Ritz for those with a bohemian spirit and a taste for fresh fish that has leapt straight out of the sea and landed on the grill. Named after the effervescent owner, Anita was a beautiful woman with dark lustrous eyes, hair black as coal and […]

The pomegranates of Selva la Mar

SELVA LA MAR

The first time I visited the monastery at Sant Pere de Rodes was on a stone track that led out of the village of Selva la Mar. There was no road and the climb up the almost vertical gradient took two hours. It was Semana Santa 1984. I was with my wife Valerie and two […]

Sant Pere de Rodes

SANT PERE DE RODES

  In the story of Cadaqués, the monastery Sant Pere de Rodes has always played a major role. The vast Benedictine stronghold with unscalable walls looms over the surrounding countryside just ten kilometres around the coast from the village.  The Benedictines first came to this remote corner of Iberia at the end of the 9th century when […]

Cadaques church illustrates problems with MOORS ON THE COAST

MOORS ON THE COAST

‘Moors on the coast,’ someone shouted. The men shielded their eyes from the sun and watched as a fleet of galleys crossed the horizon. As the ships moved closer, driven by the jerking movement of the rowers, the watchman out on the cape could make out the square-rigged sails and long black flags snapping like […]

Image Shows Salvador Dali holding a seashell as he sails out to sea

Salvador Dali Brings Simon Baker to Cadaqués

An album – a feast, a spectrum, a kaleidoscope – of some of the world’s best photography opens in the streets, bars and galleries of Cadaqués on 1 October 2021 at the start of the InCadaqués International Festival of Photography – now in its fifth year – the second year of Covid.  The best? Absolutely. After […]