This July, I got to spend 17 days in Catalonia, northeastern Spain with my family. We hadn’t been on a family trip in who knows how many years.. I think ten! Possibly more? We used to visit Oman often when my dad and stepmom lived there for a decade, but since they moved back to the USA almost 10 years ago, these international family trips have been less frequent.
What a gift! We were celebrating my dad’s retirement and my stepmom’s 60th birthday, as well as togetherness & being alive, among other things. I want to share some Spain highlights and tales with you, so read on if you’re down for that!
PART 1: THE SCENE
We rented an AirBnb a short walk from the small town of Sant Feliu De Guixols, Catalonia. It was the perfect Mediterranean seaside spot to soak up the sun and explore the multitude of day trips in that area. Google says Sant Feliu is a “human settlement” lmao:
And I’d say Google is correct, though they failed to mention it’s a major SEA URCHIN SETTLEMENT as well. By this I mean, on the very first morning of our very first day in Spain, we scaled down some rocky cliffs to jump into the sea. As I awkwardly crawled out of the rocky cove, I stepped on a gnarly sea urchin.
When you step on one of these bad boys and realize what’s happened, it’s already too late. The subsequent pain from the urchin debacle actually ended up affecting my ability to sleep as well as walk for the first 5 days of the trip lol.. I was so mad at myself!!
My sister spent a couple of hours pulling nearly invisible urchin spines from all 5 of my right toes as I writhed and screamed. Some were too deep to get out so we tried to wait for “my body to expel them” which didn’t really work.. my toes were growing exponentially by the day.. so in the following days, my dad took a stab at the spine removal task.
He ended up digging IN my toes with a needle to get at the smallest spines - and he succeeded! I drank a lot of wine during this scene. But I didn’t let the urchin get me down, and spent the first few days hobbling around, sitting down whenever I could, and seeing all of the sights despite my throbbing lil toes.
I also had to sleep with my foot elevated on a pillow or two every night, because the throbbing sensation was too intense. So going forward, I’ll be paying more attention to where I step in the ocean.
PART 2: DALÍ DAY
For the duration of the Spain trip, we had rented this “mid sized SUV” (that we affectionately named The Green Goblin). All 7 of us quickly realized that the North American perception of mid-sized when it comes to SUVs is a bit different than in Europe haha.. our sweet little Green Goblin only had small seats for 5 people. The interior was honestly the size of a car back home :P
So two of my sisters took it upon themselves to squish into the trunk together for the 4 hours of driving we had planned for Salvador Dalí Day. As well as on other day trips. We ceremonially dubbed them The Trunklings.
There were two exciting activities on the docket: The Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres as well as Salvador Dalí’s house in Cadaques. We started with the museum, where he is actually buried in a crypt! It’s been described as “the world's largest Surrealist object”, and houses some of his greatest masterpieces, which I found incredibly inspiring.
To see so many of my favourite artist’s pieces in one building was mind-bending. I’ve always been captivated by surrealist art, his in particular, ever since I visited the Dalí Museum in Paris when I was in my twenties.
Some fun facts about Salvador Dalí:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to velvet reverie to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.