Iceland is Green and Greenland is Ice (apparently)

Iceland seems to be one of those mystical places that you know about, without really knowing anything much about it at all. As an exchange student ten years ago, I spent a weekend in Vieux Boucau on the French Atlantic coast with a bunch of friends, including an Icelandic girl. I can't remember her name, but she had the Nordic blonde hair and blue eyes and was really down to earth and fun. Fast forward a couple of years, and Sigur Ros became all the rage, showing up on 'mix' CDs and playlists put together by friends. They are an Icelandic band from Reykjavik who I have probably not listened to since about 2007.

18 year old me with Swedish (pink) and Icelandic (white) friends

I guess I forgot about Iceland for a while, you don't meet a lot of Icelandic folks in New Zealand and our countries are probably about as far apart as you can get geographically. More recently however, friends and acquaintances started going there on holidays, the economy completely crashed and a volcano erupted, causing an ash cloud that held flights up all across Northern Europe at Christmas time. Iceland became accessibly or at least familiar-ly foreign.

About a month ago, I finally went there to see Iceland for myself. Much like Lisbon earlier, a long weekend in Reykjavik was a panicked booking when I thought my English number might be up, and Joan and George mentioned they were all going there for a long November weekend. Yet again, I did little other than book the flights and Google a token restaurant recommendation after Jess mentioned 'the one at number 1 on Trip Advisor is great'.

When we boarded the purple plane, the air hostesses excitedly informed the flight about the FIFA qualifier happening as we flew, with Iceland playing Croatia on home turf for a place in the World Cup. Then about half an hour before landing, the crew told everyone that they would switch the lights off and suggested we find a spot to squint at the Northern Lights out the right side of the plane. Magical. It was clear pretty early that Icelandic people are friendly and welcoming and proud of their tiny, beautiful country. Not surprising to later learn that the population is a mere 300,000 or so. It was snowing outside when we arrived, we stuffed our wallets with thousands of krona and went to pick up the car to drive from Keflavik into Reykjavik to the apartment.

Having overlooked the fact that the sun would rise late, it was about 11am by the time we woke up on Saturday. A quick hustle and trip to the bakery and we were on the road for the day 1 road trip. Public transport is great, but there is nothing like the freedom of a road trip. Especially with a pre-planned play list featuring everybody's new number one fave song about animals. What DOES the fox say?! A one hit wonder for those Norwegians, surely.

Marty with co-pilots Joan and TomTom, guiding us up to the Golden Circle

We ooohed and ahhhed our way around the Golden Circle, braving the cold to check out waterfalls and geysers and allowing blasts of air in through the window as we snapped happily away with our cameras dangling out the windows of the Qashqai. It was pretty chilly. Parts of the drive were a bit hairy as the weather really closed in on our way home so we were very glad to have upgraded to a four wheel drive.

Gullfoss waterfall

What it would look like if it snowed at the geysers in Rotorua, NZ

We had an early booking for dinner at Fredrik V. It was our first Icelandic 'proper meal' and therefore first introduction to the value Iceland places in sourcing local produce, and indeed to how much variety there is there, in spite of the whole place feeling like a frozen planet. Fredrik takes local sourcing to the extreme, with everything except the Spanish peppercorns being from Iceland. I loved the concept of a surprise set menu, you just turn up, decide on 3 or 5 courses, with/out beer or wine matchings, and you get whatever is on the menu that night. We went with 3 courses, and our delightful waitress explained every course and ingredient in great detail as each one was brought out. There was even a little map of Iceland on the table to point out where each main component came from, and she explained how things were grown - Iceland seems to be quite clever with using energy to grow things in spite of the cold, and they even grow bananas! It was clear how much love and attention went into each dish and it all tasted exquisite. The highlight for me was actually the second amuse-bouche: an espresso cup of creamy wild mushroom soup served in between the trout entrée and lamb main course. Simply heavenly and a definite contender if I had to pick my last supper. 

Fridrik himself (magazine from Waterstones)

 

From dinner, we went home to put tights on under jeans and basically wear all the clothes we'd brought with us before getting picked up to go on a Northern Lights tour. Long story short, we were driven around in a bus for 5 hours in the dark and didn't see anything. Had hot cocoa from a thermos and a dry doughnut in a snowy coach park, then returned home circa 2am.

Sunday came and we had planned on doing a 9 hour road trip to see some glaciers. I've seen photos and they look beautiful. However despite Marty being a very safe driver, we vetoed this plan given the snowy conditions, especially as we accidentally didn't wake up until half way through the day again, pushing our timings out quite considerably. Everyone had heard mixed reports about riding Icelandic Horses, one of the 'things to do in Iceland', but we decided we could do micro-breweries anywhere (the other option - for next time) and signed up for the horses.

Looking out to sea off a side street in central Reykjavik

Reykjavik Cathedral up to the right

After breakfast and a wander, we were picked up and driven to the riding centre, where we donned ski/sky-dive style onesies and were given a rather long introduction about the horses. I might have been the only one to find this genuinely pretty interesting, and Inga  the guide was certainly a passionate lady. The horses are a unique breed, aptly described in a magazine I bought as "hardy work horses, with the personality of a puppy". When you consider the geography and isolation of Iceland, it is no wonder that the Icelandic people would not have survived if it was not for their horses, stocky little animals brought across the North Atlantic by Norse settlers. The Icelandic Horse is the only breed of horse in the country and is so protected that once an Icelandic Horse leaves Iceland, it is never allowed back in. It was love at first sight when I was introduced to Somi! Since a picture tells a thousand words, I will simply say that what started out as a lovely sunset ride very quickly became a trek through a blizzard. An adventure, to say the least.

Sunset/ serenity team pic

Horizontal shards of blizzard (me laughing my head off)

Our evening meal was at another highly regarded restaurant that everyone seems to talk about in Reykjavik, The Grill Market (or Grillmarkadurinn, in Icelandic). Probably one of our best decisions of the weekend was opting for the tasting menu for 5, which went down great with a couple of bottles of red. Whale and puffin sliders as one of 4 entrées were a bit controversial for us, so these were swapped out for some epic beef skewers, following a calamari/salt fish combo, duck salad, and pork ribs. We were then served 3 mains (salmon, lamb, beef) and a rather outrageous dessert tasting extravaganza. I loved the way everything was presented in the middle of the table with the perfect amount for 5 people. No pesky how-do-you-divide-4-ribs-by-5 situations here! We toasted the excellence of the weekend, and the recent engagement of Joan and Marty.

Small subset of Grill Market tasting menu

To no real avail, the Northern Lights were again attempted after dinner, since we loved that 5 hour bus trip so much. Joan at least got to try out a new setting on her great new camera.

 

With an afternoon flight back to London booked, we got up at a 'normal' time on Monday morning. 8.30am looked like midnight. by 9.30, on our way to breakfast, nothing had changed and we got to Laundromat Café in the dark. I grumble like most Londoners about the darkness and shortness of the days, but Iceland daylight hours (lack of) is next level. The sun pretty much rises and sets at the same time. Monday eventually dawned a beautiful clear day for taking some city scenery pictures and heading onwards to the Blue Lagoon thermal pools, en route for the airport.

Any café with an enormous map on the wall gets brownie points from moi
Laundromat

Shipping container bikepark



Harpa concert hall, on the edge of the sea

View from waterfront downtown Reykjavik

Accidental photography skills on the way to the Blue Lagoon

Testing out the free mudmasks at the thermal pools

Snow machinery and twilight waiting for our 3pm flight

Suffice to say, an amazing 3 days, great people, food and a beautiful country. Will be going back. Can't give up on the Northern Lights that easily.

Thanksgiving Pudding, Pals, Poetic Justice

This is beginning to get a bit same-y as an intro sentiment, however 'I am getting really behind' on the story telling. Iceland and Barcelona (again) are patiently waiting in the wings, and to be honest, were such fab short bursts that I don't know where to start. So will stick with Thanksgiving and a recipe.

 

Last night we did Thanksgiving dinner. Not that anybody at the table was even from a country that 'does' Thanksgiving but like Halloween, and Christmas, and chestnuts on an open fire on street corners, Thanksgiving makes sense to celebrate up here in the dark Northern Hemisphere. With darkness hitting around half four, a great meal, some old fashioned champagne cocktails, and bottles of delicious wine are really what is required on the eve of the first official day of winter. The bonus factor of not having any emotionally attached Thanksgiving traditions is that we can do it our way, i.e. take the bits we want (pumpkin pie), leave others (sweet potato and marshmallows) and add our own takes (luxurious Beef Wellington).

 

A veritable feast was prepared by Hannah, who of course made things look very effortless having gone down the pub to watch the league at 2pm - sounds a bit like chalet girl Christmas - it is all in the preparation. Beef Wellington was taken to some very impressive heights (seared eye fillet, which was wearing a reduction of assorted mushrooms, encased by a layer of prosciutto, before being baked in pastry), served with celeriac remoulade, baby carrots, roast baby onions and potatoes and an incredible festive salad of kale, cranberry, sweet potato, pecan and feta salad with homemade vinaigrette. Shouldn't have touched the cheese and crisps. Good health and good friends and the opportunity to live in such a dynamic city, were the general consensus of what we had to be thankful for. Lucky us.

stolen from Hannah's Instagram

Lots of wine chat (merci recent subscription to wine society by Adrian), thanking, and playing Poetic Justice, among catching up on holiday stories and planning potential Christmas feasts. I made pudding, which we eventually got around to deciding was necessary.

 

Pumpkin Pie - Jamie Oliver's recipe

 

500 g ready-made dessert pastry - I actually used Jamie Oliver's sweet shortcrust pastry recipe for this, as a former male colleague whose wife was the Australian ambassador to NZ once convinced me how easy pastry is to make. Click here for that recipe

 

 

1 large butternut, quartered  (pumpkin isn't as available in the UK as NZ, so I think in NZ you could use a flavoursome pumpkin in place of butternut)        

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon        

4 tablespoons maple syrup

6 tablespoons caster sugar

3 large free-range eggs, beaten

200 ml double cream (same as normal cream in NZ I think)

 

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6. Roll the pastry to the thickness of a pound/dollar coin. Get a 22cm loose-bottomed tart tin, line with the pastry and bake blind for 20 minutes. Set aside. Poundland didn't have tart tins, so I used a 18x28cm slice tin lined with baking paper, pricked with a fork and then poured rice over another piece of paper on top of the base, to 'bake blind'. I think the idea is the rice weighs the pastry down, though mine still puffed up a bit.

Lay the butternut in a baking tray. Don't use a crusty tray that you wouldn't want to eat the sugary bits from when it is cooked - cover with foil if this is the case. Sprinkle with the nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon and drizzle with the maple syrup. Cover the tray tightly with a double layer of tinfoil and bake for 45 minutes until soft. Reduce the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.

Allow the pieces of butternut to cool, then scoop out the flesh, discarding seeds and stringy bits. You should have about 600g of cooked flesh. I would bother to weigh this, as I really dislike eggy flavoured puddings. You want it to taste like its name! Don't forget to scrape out the bits in the tray and the maple syrup. Put in a food processor and whiz until smooth (I used a wand hand mixer, and at a push I reckon a masher and a sieve would do the job more slowly, but still effectively - you want puree). Add 3 tablespoons of the sugar and the eggs. Mix well and stir in the cream.

Fill the cooled tart case with the mix and bake for 45 minutes. I didn't read the part about cooling the tart case first, so impatiently gave it about 15min before pouring the filling in and patiently baking it. You know when it is done because it is just firm and slightly resistant to a light touch.

 

I left the tart in the tin for a few hours until cooled to room temp after dinner. Jamie sprinkles the seeds of the butternut mixed with sugar on top (Google his recipe), but I went for mixing cinnamon and icing sugar together then sifting over the top, before lifting the tart onto a board and slicing with a sharp knife. Doesn't really need anything to go with it, we had cream and yogurt that barely got touched. Good vanilla ice-cream would be delicious. 

Sliced pie

I made Chalet Joseph brownies  in case the pie was a disaster, they were delicious too, but it was a success. Would make again!

Poetic Justice (think literary Pictionary), Pumpkin Pie, Brownies

Happy 1st December! Let the countdown to Christmas begin. I promise Emma's guest appearance in Barcelona, and a storm on Icelandic horses, are coming soon.

Portugal: 48 hours in Lisbon

When I first came to London, work was hectic for about 6 months and going away beyond a train ride to Edinburgh or Brighton on a weekend, was about as mini-break as it got. The concept of these 'quick weekends in Europe' that Facebook told me were what I was meant to be doing while on my 'OE', was completely alien to me. I had other amazing things on, and Edinburgh and Brighton were great anyway, but it was only recently that I first experienced the run to the airport on a Friday evening, to check out of the country for a whirlwind 2 days.

 

A few months ago when the job hunt was looking especially dire, I started to consider the idea of moving on from London earlier than anticipated, and with that came a slight panic that I hadn't done as much travelling as I thought I should have, whatever that should mean. My friend Jacque was keeping her summer holiday til the end of summer and doing a Switzerland/Portugal combo, appealing to a bunch of us to join, and after a fair number of emails this became a girls weekend in Lisbon for 8 at the end of her holiday. I have to credit any organisation and research to others, I did nothing except book into the same flights that the London contingent had already chosen, whacking it on the kiwi credit card as the pound bank balance continued to plummet into the red. To be honest, I was almost anxious to go away for such a tiny stint and feared that if I researched, I would find too many things that might be on an agenda more suited to weeks, not days. This proved to be an excellent move, as I blissfully enjoyed everything everyone else had on their lists, without ever having to make a decision (decision-making not a strong point).

 

I was more than ready to get the he11 off the plane when it landed, having endured a couple next to me who were pushing the boundaries of couple behaviour in a public place. These budget airline short haul planes are not spacious, so without wanting to sound like a prude, it was a bit tight for 3,  with the elbows and squirming happening next to me.

 

Once on the runway, it was cooler than expected, though certainly pleasant and not cold. A bit of Spanish came out when I tried to negotiate the taxi, which was delightfully cheap to get to the apartment. Due to aforementioned lack of research, I can tell you nothing about the area we stayed in. The apartment was huge though, and 8 of us easily fit! What's more it was a steal, at something like £15/night each. Someone had recommended a place for dinner so we got in taxis again and headed there. Delicious real fruit cocktails, croquetas and olives were enjoyed alongside fabulously fresh bread, which reminded me of the delicious traditional bread we ate in ex-colony Mozambique, when I was there in 2006. Salads to follow had to be the healthiest thing we enjoyed the whole weekend, so at least it started off with 5-a-day in mind!

 

On Saturday morning we caught the train to the hill top village of Sintra, about an hour out of the city. Our first stop for coffee and pastries was actually second-breakfast, but some of the girls had made a Portugese friend on the train who had recommended a specific coffee shop. As it turns out, it was his family's gig, but it was cheap and delicious so no complaints there.

Second breakfast
Don't usually favour appley things, but that pastry was delicious

It was pouring with rain, but the hop on-and-off bus driver virtually forced us off at the Pena Palace, convincing 4/8 that it was the most beautiful palace in the whole of Portugal, and we must go there. I also think it was the same place that one of our Portuguese chalet guests from Morzine was a director of, but I didn't see her. If you Google the palace, it looks rather magical, in the rain however, and the mist, we couldn't see much at all.

Wikipedia of the Palace and view

Our actual experience - misty

King Neptune seemed a bit redundant, given that we couldn't see the sea

Looking for the view

The beauty was still evident and the interior of the palace had a really personal non-museum feel to it, which is not really the norm in castles and museums, I wouldn't say. A staff member heard our accents and stopped us to see where we were from. He was thrilled when we told him the news, as he had spent some time in New Zealand and had a lot to say about rally driving in NZ, especially in the 80s and 90s. If it hadn't been for a Scottish colleague I used to work with in NZ (semi-pro driver), I would have thought he was getting his countries wrong, but it was pretty nice to be recognised for something so original!

Getting up close to see that the colours through the mist

Interior courtyard with ferns (aren't they from New Zealand?)

Coat of arms in the ceiling detail



I kept wondering where the kitchen was, and it was worth the wait to finally find it.
Enormous!

The rain continued when we got back down to the town, so in bursts of sunshine we went exploring. We sampled a local specialty of Lisbon called Ginjinha, which is cherry liqueur served as a shot in a dark chocolate cup that you eat when you have sipped. Absolutely delightful and quite devastating to be unable to pop in hand luggage.

The rest of the afternoon was spent back in Lisbon, in a plaza sampling jamon, fresh local cheese, and a 15% pinot. Between four of us, we thought we would put 5euro in each and have a little snack session, but it was all so cheap that we ended up with olives, more cheese, fig jam and wine, to have with our plate of meats and bread.

 

An excellent snack haul in the plaza in Lisbon

One of my favourite things about my experience of Mediterranean countries, is the culture of evenings starting late, the relaxed get-ready, aperitif, dining late, and seeing where the night goes. I think this is probably also influenced by all those years waitressing, where I always wanted to be in the shoes of the folks who had to wait at the bar for an hour, a proposition they didn't always relish at first but which meant dinner would be much more relaxed without the gaze of other hungry onlookers, or the rush for the next course so they could get to the theatre or home to the babysitter. Not to mention on this particular evening in Lisbon, that taking on all those tapas at 5pm meant hunger was miles away.

 

Eventually we wandered back out of the apartment around 10pm to a restaurant that had been recommended by several people, and did not disappoint. Having been lucky enough to do a fair amount of my travelling by living in other places or at least visiting locals, I love being able to experience what the locals are up to - where they eat and drink, rather than getting trapped in tourist spots in front of a clearly unauthentic menu. 'Guilty' was off the main road and not exactly in a dining district. When 8 of us showed up around 10.30pm, without a booking, it was humming. Guilty was full of beautiful people and all the stuff were good looking and happy, music was pumping, and it was clear that what we had read about the restaurant turning into a dance floor while you ate, was highly likely to be true. Initially the waitress/door-gal who greeted us turned us away, however a second glance at the host/waiter man and we were able to sit down after a 5 minute wait at a table on the porch.

I don't really mean to 'review' this place, but it was fun, clearly 'cool', with some very yummy sangria. A loitering man by our table turned out to be a bouncer looking over a neighbouring table, little did we know we were sat next to a pop-star, who Megan later confirmed to be Tony Carreira.

Dinner at Guilty

Leather jacket = Portuguese singer

As promised, a dance floor was cleared and we were informed after dinner that at that point you had to buy pre-pay drinks cards, and could only order bottles of vodka or champagne (not highly unusual in European 'clubs' in my limited experience). We took that as a cue to get out of there and headed to a 'superclub' down by the water, with a friend living there, who Sarah had met at Glastonbury. We happened to have a number of mutual Auckland pals. As I have said before, you can take the kiwis out of NZ, but they don't get far without bumping into each other..

 

Luxe was awesome. Huge and fun and impressive, but totally unpretentious (general Lisbon vibe). We sampled some Amarguinha over ice (maybe a Portuguese version of amaretto, sort of, delicious), among other things, then all of a sudden it was 4am. The evening was well and truly still young however we opted for going home so that we could try and enjoy our only other weekend day. Sunday was spent on struggle street, if I am honest, although Megan's Portuguese colleague had pointed us in the direction of a nearby park with a cute little coffee kiosk that was the perfect distance for a fresh air walk and a caffeine and pastry buffer to start the day. Another local gem, I would probably never leave this leafy haven of a Sunday, if I lived there.

 

 

 

I realise it sounds like we did a lot of eating in Lisbon, and on Sunday, with half the crew having been out of the apartment and off to the airport before the remaining 4 were awake, we had one main objective: tarts. Not much was open but it was a pretty bus ride to the seaside area called Belem, with one important landmark, an enormous patisserie called Pastéis de Belem, home of the custard tart. In London these are not that uncommon, and back in 2010 Lucy and I sampled them in Macau (another ex-colony) and were not at all convinced of their cult status. We should never have bothered outside Belem, where they truly tasted amazing! Not what I would normally go for when feeling very morning-after-the-night-before, they were fresh, delicately crisp, sweet and not too eggy. We all went back for at least seconds.

View from the queue

Sprinkled with a little sachet of cinnamon and icing sugar

Releasing the tarts

For the afternoon, we wandered along the waterfront, admiring the Torre de Belem - a monument tribute to Portugal's former maritime successes and its Golden-Gate-Bridge lookalike.

Limestone tower of Portuguese explorers

I later regretted not standing in this queue for a take-home round of those tarts

After a rather stressful sardine-can tram experience, we whiled away the remainder of the afternoon back in the centre of Lisbon, in the rain.

Cute (creepy?) note in a street in central Lisbon

New tram, old tram

It is a really pretty city and as I said, has the nicest chilled feel to it, yet the people all seemed really cheerful and helpful. Will certainly be going back there! Thanks to the girls for a wonderful time xx

Spain: Castelldefels, Barcelona, Cadaques

This time last week I was drinking San Miguel from a glass in a hotel in Barcelona, while getting ready to go out for dinner with Carine. This week, Tash and I are on the couch in London, watching a quality piece of television, namely 'Hen's Behaving Badly'. Not quite the same.

 

Carine had called from Spain the week before to explain that this would the only weekend free in her busy tv-producing schedule out working near Barcelona, on a Quebec dating/Big Brother reality show being filmed there.

Tuesday: booked annual leave

Wednesday: booked flight

Thursday: re-hola Spain!

 

I have a thing about airport emotions (love them). It was therefore an absolute treat for once to be met at the arrivals by someone I knew, to be able to partake in that classic throw-the-bags-down-excitedly-and-run-for-the-hug thing (as opposed to looking above and beyond all the name plaques trying to locate taxi/bus/train). I can't figure out how to describe the feeling of the air in coastal areas, you don't realise how different the air can feel in places until you change environs, and I am not referring to temperature. Whatever, the Mediterranean physically and emotionally smacks me in the face every time I return, and this was no exception. With the windows down and the amazingly bright moon lighting up the sky, we hootled home in the rented Huyandai to Castelldefels (via the 'big brother' houses of the show Carine works on) for a tasting session of chocolate and red wine before heading to have a drink around the corner with a bunch of workmates.

 

On Friday, I explored Castelldefels in the rain, but quite simply did not care about getting wet, such was the joy of feet in sand, sea spray on face! The Mini Cooper European Kite Surfing tour happened to be on around the block, so lapped that up for a while and eventually caught the bus in to Barcelona for the evening (about 25km north).

Kite surfing on the beach at Castelldefels

Beach-front property in the offseason

In the spirit of spontaneity, we decided to spend the night in the city to bypass taxi negotiations in the small hours, and avoid backtracking on our roadtrip up the coast to Cadaques for the rest of the weekend. Ended up at Sensi Bistro upon a recommendation, and devoured a range of tapas and a delicious bottle of cava. Can't be bothered listing the tapas but the best was absolutely the fillet steak bleu. I was in my multi-lingual element, as we conversed with a waiter from Normandy in French, the blue-eyed one from Seattle (or Alaska?) in English and Spanish and each other in a weird combo of all 3. Without a doubt, the highlight of the whole evening was when blue-eyes brought our coffees over and Carine decided she would smile at him and say thanks through teeth painted artfully with a dark mouthful of chocolate fondant. Absolutely priceless!

 

The funny thing about Barcelona is that down all the winding streets, and in the squares on the way to bars, people stand about selling stubbies of beer and empanadas out of containers to passers by on their way in between A and B.

Token Friday night double-selfie

Dog hanging with the empanada merchants

We hopped on the freeway up to Cadaques, via a much-needed lunch stop in a recommended seaside town called Palafrugell.

Barcelona landmark - must be new, no idea what it is

Nothing bizarre about the soundtrack

Palafrugell on the Costa Brava for lunch

More puppy-stalking

Soggy but somehow heavenly, patatas bravas by the sea

Lunching

Pudding for the road

Cadaques was a delight. We ate, drank, wandered the cobbled, bougainvillea'd streets and I took a silly amount of photos that didn't come out, of street cats.

Cadaques in the last of Saturday's sun

A 'half' serve of meats and Catalan tomato bread on our home-made 'bar crawl'



Awesome presentation of French onion soup
served at the table with a crouton basket filled with cheese and a quail egg

One of the best things I have eaten this year! @ Maitanqui.
Fried green tomatoes with guacamole, feta, pico de gallo, etc

On Sunday we were met with another cloudless day in which to explore the town further in daylight, before heading to Salvador Dali's house for a must-pre-book tour.

Morning coffee

Kitty on a balcony

'Xuxu' - basically the original cronut
A croissant, fried, filled with custard, covered in sugar. YES.
(so good, we might have been back 3 times in the day)



Waiting for our entry time into Dali's house around the corner at Portlligat

If you go to Cadaques, you need to book online to go to Salvador Dali's house as they limit the number of people who can enter at a time. It is well worth it though (about 11euro entry) and had a really personal feel to it. Apparently, in a very romantic gesture, upon his wife Gala's death, he left the house as he couldn't bear to live there anymore. To book click here

Salvador Dali's house in Port Lligat

Inside the second floor, so creative and interesting



Token pic in Dali's garden, taken by a Spanish Johnny Bravo museum security man

Haha - someone else's family being funny by the pool in Dali's garden

For the rest of the day, instead of stopping for a drink at this amazingly located restaurant with guy playing some live music at the top of Cap de Creus, we winded back down the road to the beach and went swimming before heading for the airport.

Beautiful views for the Mediterranean-most point of Spain, Cap de Creus

Mediterranean swim = the best!