Gypsy Living: Cadaques aka. Oscar S's favorite place in the world

The 3-hour bus ride to Cadaques is pretty nice, until the last 20 minutes. At that point you need to climb up and down a mountain. Little Oscar wins the prize for car sickness again, but Nana gets an honorable mention for catching it in her hands since it caught us unaware. Most of us got off the bus ready to kiss the ground when we arrived! This view made up for it...

Cadaques is a gorgeous town on the Costa Brava of the Mediterranean, and a perfect contrast to the hustle and bustle of Barcelona. Aside from a little nausea and a little trouble connecting with our property manager (in a town with one bus stop and one main street...) we arrived in one piece and ready to relax. We were there just ahead of the busy tourist season, which was perfect since everything was open but nothing was packed (town population is under 3000, but can get 10x higher in peak season). I can't imagine what it would be like in July!

This picture pretty much sums up how Livi felt about Cadaques:

And little Oscar:

Claire had a little trouble, but we let her hang out with us anyway.

Nana and Jenny kept up her spirits through costume and song.

Seriously though, we had to drag Oscar and Claire kicking and screaming onto the bus when it was time to go. While the majority of us hung out around town, played on the beach, and took a few walks, Oscar and Claire (sometimes joined by Papa and little Oscar) hiked around quite a bit, scaled rocks and cliffs, and were even crazy enough to bike up and down the same mountain we took to get there. We also found little Oscar's favorite restaurant ever in the main square since "it had such good meat [roast chicken leg], french fries, and you always had dessert with your meal!" We ate there at least 3 times, and I think it became Papa's favorite too!

Hiking and biking around:

Their hike to the lighthouse:

view from the ferry for perspective

look closely just under and to the right of the lighthouse where
there's a little window in part of a ruined building

and there's Oscar from the other side of the window, and cliff!

Shots around town:

oscar loved collecting rocks and sea glass

While we originally planned a day trip to Girona, the length of the bus ride and the potential for a lot more hills brought us to the beach in Roses instead. We still had to take the 20 min ride up and down the mountain to get there, but thankfully discovered a ferry that could take us back.

much happier to be on the water than a bus,
kids are exhausted from the beach and quickly fell asleep for the whole ride

Cadaques was a favorite spot of Salvador Dali and his house in Port Lligat was a 20 min walk from our house. I don't have any pictures from the house itself (which is now a museum), but a lot from the walk and area around the house.