Salvador Dali

9th December

Jc's ankle: much less swollen but still very painful
Gybo: much better
Saddlebag: 18c

I think we were spoilt in France with the camp sites, France Passion and the Aires. Now much harder to plan routes and night stops. There are much fewer Aires in Spain and these are mostly located on the popular seaside coastal areas. Not where we want to go unfortunately. Even the ones on the main roads are no good as it says in our Aires book:

DO NoT STOP/SLEEP ON THIS MOToRWAY. LOCAL POLICE CONFIRM
fREQUENT ROBBERIES FRom VeHiCLEs SToPPiNG At MOTORWAY REST AREAs

Anyway, the plan today was to see the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres and also to get some LPG (oh no!)

Stupidly I had assumed that Figueres was a small village like Cadaques and that we would park up, leave the dogs for a couple of hours and wander off to find the museum.

Well, it took us 15 minutes to get through the outskirts of this enormous town. We didn't have a clue where the museum was so just headed for the centre and eventually picked up some signs. The traffic and roads around Figueres are more difficult than Albi with really narrow streets and parked cars down all of them.

All car parking spaces were car sized and at an angle off the main streets so couldn't get in there. Very frustrating and just as we discussed giving up we came across a large bit of empty land that was covered with a thin film of sand. There were three cars parked on it and we parked up beside them. We weren't sure about it all and also leaving the dogs, so I spoke to a lady who lives in the flats opposite and she explained that the Museum was only a 5 minute walk away, and she thought it would be ok to leave the van.

I am so glad we went. It is a fantastic exhibition and we both really enjoyed it. I never realised the breadth of stuff that he did. The erotic drawings were pretty amusing too.

Back to the van for lunch. ( a bit odd I know eating lunch in a car park but it all works well), and then off to a camp site selected for its closeness to the coastal village of LeFranc which we had heard was worth a visit. However, we needed to top up the LPG and had found out on an Internet site that there was a garage for this in Gerona, sort of en route.

Nough said about this really. Suffice to say that finding the LPG garage wasn't easy, many roundabouts were circled many times, the air got quite blue and the dogs got upset.

The pals campsite (Mas Patoxas) was ok although we arrived in the dark anyway but in the morning we could see that it was a massive place full of permanent set ups. Maybe for owners weekend use, or perhaps for permanent use. Some of them have caravans with an awning and then another awning added to that. They have covers like a skirt running the whole way around the bottom of the caravan so that they can use the area under it for storage, although I saw a double bed frame being pushed under one so presumably this could be the 7th bedroom. Others are just awnings where the owners have set up a fitted. Full fridge and oven, surrounded by kitchen units. Hilarious.







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