Salvador Dali Museums in Figueres and Portlligat

On February 13., two days before we flew back to Finland, we drove via Girona to Figueres and Portlligat to visit two Dali museums.The Teatre-Museu Dali was built on ruins of a 19th century theater, destroyed during Spanish civil war. This impressive museum was designed by Salvador Dali himself in 1940's. The collection here in his birth place was very large and amazing, covering his art from 30's to 70's. Of course the whole building is very strange, a real Dali like production. On the way to Portlligat, a fishing village near Caceres, we crossed over 600 meters high mountains with extraordinary views. This museum was his home and atelier from 1930 to 1982, until Galas death, his wife. It was just in that condition how it was, when Dali left the house. There were no paintings but a lot of photos of celebrities, movie stars, politicians, musicians etc., who did visit them. It gave a very good impression how the couple did live in this tiny fisherman's village a few meters from the sea a peaceful life.

Spending two months in Blanes, Catalunya, Spain between 14.12. 2012 -15.2.2013

I had been thinking for a longer time to escape at least for some weeks the long and dark Finnish winter together with my little dog, bison frise "Niki". Mostly I had Spain in my mind because of my knowledge of the language in some degree. One day at The Finnish Club I met an old childhood friend MR. Pertti Nenonen, who during our discussion did ask about my winter plans. After hearing that I was looking something in Spain in non-touristic area, he told me about Blanes,where he had been spending several long vacations. I was immediately interested in that little Costa Brava town of 40,000 inhabitants about 90 km north of Barcelona. He then sent me the address to contact, and two months later I arrived Blanes. I had rented an apartment with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen and a cozy living room on fourth floor at the beach boulevard with the view over marina to the sea. From my balcony I very often followed the trawlers returning to the harbor between 5-6pm. Even in January the sun did shine to the balcony from about 9am to 4.30pm daily. I counted those sunny days during my stay: 52 of total 62 days. Four slightly rainy days, the rest just cloudy.The day temperatures were between 13-18C, and nightly 6-8C. The beautiful and very clean boulevard was a market place every Monday from 9am-2pm. You could buy almost anything there, clothes, shoes, kitchen utensils, CD:s etc. On my first Monday I bought a nice lumber jack-style fleece jacket for 10 euros. With four pockets it was very practical, and warm in the evenings. At the boulevard there were many bars, cafeterias and restaurants, from which I soon found my favorite ones. First connections with the local people happened naturally trough dogs, and then trough waiters and waitresses, who mostly were very pretty, and many from different countries in South America. With the time I knew more and more people, mostly between 25-40 years. On my last day there many of them wished I would return next year. The town was very pretty, especially the old part and the ruins of a medieval castle overlooking from a hill 300 meters over the town. During the last 8 days I had visitors from Finland, Anneli and Eero Lihtonen, very long time dear friends of mine. She also very often takes good care of Niki , when I am traveling alone. Niki and Anneli really are deeply in love to each other. Eero had rent a car from Barcelona airport, which we then used to trips to Montserrat and Barcelona, to Salvador Dali's museum