Vacation Days 5-8

(this is an archive blog of our 2007 European vacation)

We awaken Saturday, May 19, in Cadaques, Spain, with anticipation – mine of discovering a new place, Linda’s of introducing me to a familiar place. In July, 2001, she accompanied a friend here to attend a painting workshop presented by the friend’s friend and an acquaintance of ours, Robert Venosa, an artist of some repute. When Bob first discovered Cadaques in the early 70’s, he hung out with Salvador Dali. Dali is the artist perhaps most famous for his melting clock faces and elephants on stilts; he lived a kilometer away in Port Lligat, a village on the other side of the spit of land on which Cadaques is located.

It was on her daily walk from the island at the end of the spit (the location of the workshop and her apartment) to the village center that Linda passed Playa Sol, the hotel at which we were staying. A small pebble and sand beach in front of the hotel provided us with a wonderful, gentle surf sound for our sleep each night after we moved from the “emergency” room in which we stayed the first night. The road between the beach and the hotel is the village’s thoroughfare – everything from large trucks to loud, staccato motorbikes make their way along this strip of blacktop – often at speeds too great for the pedestrians that had to share the road in some spots. Being just barely two lanes in most places, less in the other places, drivers need to be focused when they enter this artery; blind curves, wide vehicles and motorbike drivers that apparently think a helmet will keep them from all harm make the road INTO Cadaques seem like a breeze. We were fortunate that we had reserved a third-floor seaside room; there the traffic noise was tolerable and the abrasive rat-a-tat-tat of the motorbikes lost its sting.

The walk into the village center takes about ten minutes – along the seawall, around another small beach, along the boat tie-downs and along the central beach brings us to the “village square”, an elevated, sand/clay area that is about 10 meters by 30 meters.  During our first day in Cadaques we had the “pleasure” of listening to a mechanical mariachi band ("would someone please stop feeding that thing coins?" J). On one side of the “square” was the “Cadaques Freeway” and the beach with two beach bars; on the other were a number of restaurants, souvenir shops and small grocery stores. And up from the “Freeway” there rose a warren of cobble stone “streets”, the only vehicles that could travel them were motorbikes, on which, thankfully, there were few. Here residences were interspersed with shops, meatmarkets, vegetable stands and restaurants. Growing up the all-stucco building walls were bougainvilleas of various colors – pinks, reds and dark violet. Once in a while you’ll see a white jasmine, which perfumes the street up and down. I say “up and down” because Cadaques is built on a steep, rocky outcropping of Northeastern Spain, with its church at the top and the village spreading out below it to the beach and sea.

And some church it is. When you walk into the church from the seaside entrance high on the hill you are greeted to a most extraordinary altar – a golden wall of carvings that stretches 35-40 feet high and just as wide, lit by a bank of spot lights that are switched on by a 4-minute  meter that accepts 1 Euro coins. I’m thinking the church does not need bake sales to raise funds. To the left and right are crèches that house much smaller but just as intricate religious scenes. To the left of the nave is a lovely prayer chapel. It’s a bit more elaborate than our new church will be.

It takes us a day to feel comfortable navigating the warren of cobblestone streets – the rule of thumb is if you’re lost, go downhill. But because the mix of shops and residences, one gets the feeling of what it would have been like to have lived in the village – with the exception of the presence of motorbikes and the absence of raw sewage draining down the streets J.

This is the first day that we have parked the car. With a long breath out we feel like we can now start to relax – I can get used to this! But I need to be careful – the last time I really got into doing nothing, on a sales reward trip to Hawaii in 1991, I ended up not getting back into the swing of things in the work-a-day world until I got fired.J Ah well, that helped free me from the worldly aspirations so that I could eventually pursue ministry.

The streets, other than the “Freeway”, are paved with dark, flat stones laid on their edge. If you can imagine a wall being built of these flat stones and then toppled over, intact, you’ll get a sense of what these streets look like. The patterns are used to facilitate the drainage of water and to provide traction for the steep uphill climbs and downhill braking. In one street,  the entrance to a delightful little restaurant, La Serena, the stones are placed in a pattern that makes a mermaid. It was constructed in 1962 by an artist living on this particular street. One is reminded often that it is dangerous to drag your feet. Pick ’em up and set em’ down – that’ll keep you from tripping.

Three days of getting up, having a shower and breakfast, a fair amount of blogging (as you can tell), walking into town and a little bit of shopping (although we never did buy anything), having dinner, returning to the hotel and falling asleep – that’s pretty much how it went. Then on Tuesday, May 22, we headed north and east along the coast of France to a little village 5 kilometers from the Nice airport. Cagnes sur Mer is situated on the sides of a hill dominated by Chateau Eglise; these fifteenth century homes provide a peaceful redoubt from the noise and bustle of the city below.

Here the streets are just as steep as in Cadaques, except they are a bit wider. This allows cars to navigate many of the streets in this hillside village. Of course, there are lots of pedestrian-only streets here but cars routinely squeeze between the buildings into and out of the village. In our attempt to navigate these streets to find our villa, we got lost many times until we found someone that spoke English and knew the location of the villa. Once we arrived at the  villa and unloaded the luggage, I was directed to their private parking lot downhill from the villa. In her broken English, the hostess told me to take the immediate right just down the hill two hundred feet. But because it was a 150 degree turn, I was certain that this couldn’t possibly be what she meant. Added to that the car behind me urging me on and the two cars coming out of that street, I went on down the hill to what MUST have been her intended directions. Alas, she meant what she said – and I got lost again.  After another 15 minutes I found the villa again.  This time I negotiated the three-point turn and arrived at their parking  lot located 82 steps below the main level of the villa (yes, I counted them).

Thankfully, we have rented a small car. But you can tell from the gouge marks on the walls where the streets bend that there have been many attempts to put larger vehicles through the streets or unskilled drivers have been at the wheel. On several occasions, as we have walked up or down the streets, we’ve had to quickly get out of the way of a vehicle, lest we arrive home in a body bag. An interesting and charming place but I am certain I would not want to live here!

On the way across Southern France, I begin to get that “weird feeling” in my body that is usually my body’s signal that a bug is on its way.  Sure enough, by the time we arrive in Cagnes s/ Mer (another way it is labeled on highway and street signs), I am having a bit of a fever, an “almost cough” and an upset stomach. With the stress of finding the place, then getting lost again, then the 82 steps from the parking lot, I am ready for bed. “But wait,” says Linda. “Let’s get something to eat first.” So we hike about 300 meters uphill to a little pizza place on the grounds of the Chateau, have a meal and back to the villa. And so ends day 8 of our vacation.