Road to nowhere

No one ever tells you much about Gala Dalí, except that she liked sex and her husband Salvador was obsessed with her. Even the Castell Gala Dalí, the castle that Dalí bought and designed for her, doesn't have much actual information about Gala. She was Russian, married to Paul Eluard, left him for Dalí. What did she do, what were her interests, what was she like? I dunno. But she did live the last ten or so years of her life in this castle in Púbol, a tiny town in northern Catalunya not too far from Cadaques/Port Lligat, which is where Dalí was living at the time. She had the place to herself, and Dalí only came over when he was invited. The Gala Castle is almost boring compared to the Dalí museum/house in Cadaques--no cricket cages or Michelin men or photos of Stalin. It's mostly just really nice: some Dalí paintings and drawings, some tapestries, a nice terrace and beautiful garden. Oh, and a giant stuffed horse when you walk in (made me think of Catherine the Great, I can't help it). And she's buried downstairs. This is Dalí, after all.

Getting to Púbol was more interesting than the museum itself. My guidebooks were no help at all. The museum's website said to take the train to Flaça, that Púbol is 4km away, and if you don't want to walk you can take a taxi. Okay. I figured there would be signs or information of some sort at the train station, but no. The woman working at the station said I should take a cab, but had no information on how long it would take or what it would cost. Also, there don't seem to be any cabs in Flaça. I waited for a while at the alleged taxi stand, but none came. Tried to walk to the city center but Flaça doesn't seem to have a city center; it doesn't seem to have anything besides a train station, two banks, and a closed pharmacy. The only map at the train station was of bike paths around Girona province. There was a bike path to Púbol, which passed through another place called La Pera, and there was a sign near the train station that said La Pera and had an arrow and a picture of a bike. Following a vague sign into the Catalunyan countryside seemed like the path of least resistance. So I started walking. 4km isn't so far. I had my compass. What could happen?

For once, walking blindly in what seemed like the right direction actually worked. The path went through woods and fields, with very few sings for La Pera, and even fewer sings of human life. For a while I was pretty sure I'd made a wrong turn and might never find my way out of the wheat fields, but then there was La Pera and from there there were signs for Púbol. The walk to La Pera took about an hour, during which the only humanity I saw was a bus full of Russians (there was a sign on the front of the bus written in Cyrillic). As I was leaving the museum, Russians were going in. Between La Pera and Púbol I passed some cars. Everyone seemed to be lost; they kept stopping and looking at maps and looking around confusedly. Dalí definitely found a remote place for her. A few houses, a church, the museum, a gift shop, and a restaurant are all that seem to be in Púbol, and the gift shop and maybe the restaurant are only there because of the museum. La Pera is a little bigger, more houses anyway, but doesn't seem to have any stores or restaurants or bars at all. Or people. There were signs of life, like cars and clothes hanging out to dry, so it clearly isn't an actual ghost town, but it felt like one. It was cute, just deserted on a Sunday.

I wonder how the Pubolians felt about Gala Dalí moving into their town's castle. This is definitely the most remote place I've been in Spain so far. I saw several tractors today.