Marvellous Margot House

Margot Tenenbaum, my favourite Wes Anderson character, was the inspiration for my new favourite hotel in Barcelona – Margot House. Like Ms. Tenenbaum, the hotel is private, stylish and interesting. Numerous smart touches make this a very special place. For one, the location on the busy Paseo de Gracia. The fact that this very remarkable hotel is located on the second floor (no signs) gives it that secretive Margot touch.

In addition, there is a library, a well stocked, help-yourself bar and bicycles. The breakfasts were beautifully prepared and generous. The vibe is modern, slightly Scandi but supremely comfortable and deliciously quiet for such a swish and bustling neighborhood. In fact, it feels like you are staying at someone’s fab private house who has conveniently left you to enjoy yourself with their very accomodating staff. We took over the place for my son’s wedding in July and certainly stress-tested their ‘bonhomie’. They could not have been more charming and accommodating.

I cannot say enough good things about Margot House. The owners have created a brilliant, unique experience in a fantastic city and I must congratulate them on what they have achieved.

My feelings about this hotel are similar to Royal Tenenbaum's when his fake terminal illness has been exposed and he is being thrown out of the family home:

Royal: Look, I know I'm going to be the bad guy on this one, but I just want to say the last six days have been the best six days of probably my whole life.

Narrator: Immediately after making this statement, Royal realized that it was true.

Photo: Me in my garden in London trying to look like Margot

Compartir - Delightful Dining for the Disorganised

I don’t know about you, but the one thing I do not want to be on my summer holiday is … organized. That’s for the winter. Well, at least that is my aspiration for the winter. In summer, I want sunshine and spontaneity but for that, of course, you pay a price.  Back in the day, you couldn’t eat at the world famous el Bulli restaurant near Roses in Catalonia if you didn’t plan a military operation months or even years in advance. Annually, they would get over a million reservation requests for 8,000 covers. Those are not good odds.

But today, in the seaside town of Cadaques on the Costa Brava in Spain, where No Crowds has been holidaying for the last 20 years (you can read related posts here), three alumni of El Bulli have established Compartir, a fun, informal restaurant where we were able to book a table for 4 for lunch on 3 days notice.

And we were super-happy with our choice. We ate outdoors on the lovely terrace – buzzing but not frenetic.  Service was relaxed yet attentive and the young staff gave very good advice about navigating the menu. The food was interesting with lots of unusual – and delicious -  presentations of regional fare. The wine list was also interesting and very correctly priced. For lunch, calculate about €50 per head with wine.

So if you find yourself on the Costa Brava next summer and you want a great meal without all the strategic planning, head for Compartir in Cadaques. And yes, if I had been more organised, I would have written this post in August.

Compartir

Riera Sant Vinc

+34 972 25 84 82

Photo courtesy of Compartir website: http://en.compartircadaques.com

The Miracle at Camp Nou or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Crowds

It all started innocently enough.  My husband attends the Barcelona/Chelsea Champion’s League Semi Final football (soccer) match at Stamford Bridge stadium - capacity 41,000 - in London. Against the odds, Chelsea beats the legendary Barcelona with the next leg of the competition to take place at the Nou Camp stadium – capacity 96,336 - in Barcelona.  An ecstatic but lonely husband (I was away in North Carolina) returns from the match, goes online, finds match tickets, flights and a hotel and so I found myself heading for Barcelona to spend some time with 96,336 impassioned, inebriated football fans. How’s that for a No Crowds experience? Had he forgotten … I hate crowds.

No he hadn’t. So the first thing he did right was book us into the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos – a luxurious hotel close to the stadium. It’s a massive place and not in the center of town. Not the kind of place I usually like.  My first surprise on this journey of discovery was that I liked it a lot. The staff were quite delightful – well, I’m a sucker for a charming concierge - the room was quiet and comfortable but best of all, the place was crawling with football celebrities including the Chelsea players and most of the 824 accredited members of the media from 199 press outlets from 28 countries. I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun at a hotel bar. Plus, we were a 15 minute walk from the stadium so no concerns about transport on match day.

The next thing my football-loving husband did right was to get us to Barcelona in time to eat some fabulous food and see some sights. The first night we headed for the well-known seafood restaurant Botafumeiro (Gran de Gracia, 81 Tel: 932 184 230). It’s huge, it’s loud, it’s expensive and once again not the kind of restaurant I usually like but we had a blast helped by the fact that the place was heaving with football stars – Jamie Rednapp, Gary Neville and Lauren Blanc to name a few. If you like your restaurants buzzing and aren’t too worried about cost, Botafumeiro is big fun. The seafood was outstanding.

With the match not starting until 8:45 in the evening, we spent the next day focusing on artistic pursuits with a three hour architectural walking tour of the modernist masterpieces: Manzania de la Discordia, La Pedrera, the Palau de la Musica and many more extraordinary buildings. Sadly, the crowds and lines to get into the buildings were extraordinary as well. Between the student groups and the cruise ships, we didn’t stand a chance. So we satisfied ourselves with viewing the exteriors and that was pleasure enough.

Lunch was a delight. The concierge at the hotel had spoken so enthusiastically about the restaurant, La Pepita, that I was skeptical but the place was terrific – lovely food in a friendly, fun atmosphere at a great price. Plus, the best gin and tonics in town. We’ll be back. (Carrer Corsega 343, Tel: 93 238 4893)

But on to the main event. The game. Let’s start with the fact that Jeff insisted that we get to the stadium 1 ½   hours before kick-off. I thought he was nuts but he certainly wasn’t. Let’s put it this way, there were 90,000 of them and 5,000 of us and if that wasn’t scary enough, we were so high up, it was like watching the game from a blimp.

But what a game. An upset for the ages. Ordinarily, I’m not that interested but this was epic. I loved it. Yet the best was yet to come. After Chelsea’s miraculous victory, 5,000 of my new best friends and I had a love-in for the next 40 minutes while we were held in our pen in the sky so the stadium could be cleared of the 90,000 people who now hated our guts. Screw them. After 40 minutes of cheering, singing, hugging and chanting, the stewards opened the gates and we few, we chosen few, marched triumphantly, like gladiators, still singing, still in disbelief, out into the Barcelona night.

Great Fakes?

We are off to Cadaques in Spain made famous by Salvador Dali. We’re going to the real one.  Not the official recreation that is being built in China for holidaymakers looking for a 'taste’ of Europe and not the unofficial real estate development, Cadaques Caribe, a reconstruction in the Dominican Republic.

“How surreal” I thought when I read about all those fake Cadaqueses in the Guardian newspaper but how fitting.  As one of the most forged artists in the world, aided by the habit of signing and selling off blank sheets of paper, Dali would most likely have enjoyed the whole thing. But it does raise an interesting question about authentic versus fake experiences, and whether we should or can embrace 'the real deal'.

On one end of the spectrum is Las Vegas. According to the website Without Baggage, it’s the fakest place on earth with a fake Rome, Venice, Paris and even a fake Treasure Island – a fake of a fake. OK, Las Vegas is an obvious and in some ways funny if not a bit ridiculous example but what about Colonial Williamsburg. I LOVE Williamsburg and it too is a complete reconstruction, perhaps a worthier reconstruction, but a fake just the same. 

So what makes a travel experience authentic? A trickier question than it first appears. Mark Jones a travel writer and frequent contributor on the BA Highlife website answers it this way:

“My definition is this: authentic places are those which are comfortable in their own skin. An authentic travel experience is when you get under the skin of that place. An authentic tourist is someone who is changed by a place and doesn’t seek to change it. Let’s celebrate them.”

A pretty good definition. You can read the entire article here and check out BA Highlife’s list of the 50 most authentic places on earth here.

The No Crowds definition, which borrows heavily from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart regarding obscenity, is this:

Authentic? I know it when I see it, and the recreation of Cadaques on the coast of main land China is definitely not that.

So what’s your definition?

In Bed with Washington Irving

In 1829, Washington Irving arrived in Granada. So enraptured by the Alhambra, the city’s fabled and near deserted fairytale fortress, he moved in and wrote a book about the experience, the much admired Tales of the Alhambra. In 2010, an average of 6,000 daily visitors make their way through the legendary palaces and gardens. So how much of the romance is left? Can you get out of the scrum and recreate some of Irving’s experience ? It sounds impossible but you can. Here’s how

Start by avoiding July through September and Easter Week. Stay at the Parador de Granada San Francisco smack dab in the center of the Alhambra, and book your room at least 6 months ahead. Once a convent and resting place of Queen Isabella, this is now a swish, small hotel that absolutely makes your Alhambra experience. From the moment you drive up the closed off road, past the scores of tourists on foot wondering about the lucky folks in the car, you feel special. Outside is intensive tourism but inside the parador is your own private sanctuary. At night, when the tour groups are long gone, you can wander the battlement and bastions “treading haunted ground, and surrounded by romantic associations.” Like Irving you can believe that you "inhabit the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale", and "look down from its balconies upon chivalric Granada".

Another important thing to do prior to your visit, is to order your tickets to the Alhambra over the internet or by phone (902 441 221). Even if you are staying at the Parador de Granada, it is still a good idea to do this. Here’s why.

The fortress complex has some open areas, some areas only accessible by ticket and one area, the Palacio Nazares for which you need a time slot. If you order your tickets well in advance (you can order up to a year before your visit), you have a much better chance of getting a desirable time slot which for No Crowds travelers is either early in the morning or at night. The Parador will offer you a 2 ½ hour guided tour at EUR 49 per person, but we were perfectly happy with our EUR 13 tickets and EUR 4 audio guide which included the words of Tales of the Alhambra woven into the commentary.

At some stage during your stay you will want to leave your Arabian aerie and venture down into the city of Granada. To stay away from the crowds, we followed the excellent advice to be found in a 2008 article in the Guardian newspaper entitled “Granada’s top 10 Moorish secrets”. We especially appreciated the recommendation to visit the Carmen de la Victoria in the Moorish District, the Albaicin, which is now the guest residence for Granada University. The Islamic garden, with stunning views of the Alhambra, has been planted with flowers and bushes that would have existed in Nasrid times and we were quite alone during our marvelous visit. We also enjoyed a lively tapas evening on the Campo del Principe following the recommendation of Gayle Mackie, co-author of 100 Best Tapas Bars in Granada. Her favourite tapas bar, the atmospheric La Esquinta, also became ours.

After two magical nights, it was time to leave the Alhambra and the footsteps of Washington Irving with his love of the place still in our hearts and his haunting words still in our heads:

“Such is the Alhambra; a Moslem pile in the midst of a Christian land; an Oriental palace amidst the Gothic edifices of the West; an elegant memento of a brave, intelligent, and graceful people, who conquered, ruled, flourished and passed away.”

Baffled about Barcelona

Dear Dr. NoCrowds,

Our son has requested that we celebrate his 21st birthday in Barcelona. At the same time my mother-in-law will be turning 80 and my husband wants to assemble the family for a big reunion. The young people want to be in the center of the action., preferably near the Ramblas. The old folks want something comfortable, quiet and safe, preferably away from the crowds. Safety for my mother-in-law is a big issue as she has already had her purse snatched several times in Barcelona. Given current exchange rates, we are also mindful of cost. Can you recommend a solution that will keep everyone happy?

Signed,
Baffled about Barcelona


Dear Baffled about Barcelona,

You are in luck. Here’s the way to meet everyone’s needs, have a ball, stay safe and keep to your budget. Put the young people up at the Hostal Opera which is superbly located just off the Ramblas next to the Liceu Opera House. This small hotel provides basic accommodations and is perfect for the hard partying members of your group who are just looking for a place to sleep. With prices ranging from €46 - €90 depending on type of room and season, Hostal Opera represents excellent value for the location and at the same time is clean and safe.

A few blocks away from the Hostal Opera, you can put the rest of your party at the wonderful Hotel Montecarlo. Located directly on the Ramblas, the Montecarlo is an oasis of calm in the center of town. From the moment you step into this refurbished 19th century palace, you will be struck by how the pandemonium outside simply disappears. Décor is cool, serene and elegant. Staff is charming and helpful. Rooms are well equipped, spotless and absolutely silent. There is a good bar downstairs and a sun deck with lounge chairs and great views of Barcelona on the roof. If you need it, secure underground parking is available. For this quality hotel, rates are reasonable with a standard double running €175/night.

For a fun place to sample the tapas action near the two hotels, duck into La Boqueria, Barcelona’s large public food market with an entrance off the Ramblas near the Liceu Opera. An especially lively opportunity to sample local seafood plucked straight from the sea and grilled in front of you is the Bar Boqueria where a generous seafood sampler for two will set you back €28. You may have to wait a while to find a seat but the experience is worth it.

For getting around town, check out Go Cars, for GPS guided and narrated tours in a cute Wall-E kind of mini car.

While in Barcelona, do keep an eye on granny’s bag and tell the young folks to stick together as the Ramblas in the wee hours can get dicey. Enjoy your family reunion in one of Europe’s most exciting cities.

Useful Addresses

Hostal Opera
Sant Pau 20
08001 Barcelona
Tel: + 34 93 3188201
info@hostalopera.com

Hotel Montecarlo
La Rambla 124
08002 Barcelona
Tel: +34 93 3188201

hotel@montecarlobcn.com

Bar Barqueria
Mercat de la Boqueria
Tel: 93 4126462

Go Cars
http://www.gocartours.es/

On Becoming Salvador Dali

“At the age of 6, I wanted to become a chef. At 7, I wanted to be Napoleon. From then on, my greatest ambition was to become Salvador Dali”
Salvador Dali

N o, no, no. No museums.
But Eloise, this is a Salvador Dali museum. He was totally nuts. You’re going to love it. Even your brothers think he is really cool.
Eloise arches an eyebrow. Are you sure about the brothers?
Dead sure.
OK, let’s go.

And so, off we went to the Teatre-Museu Dali in Figueres, Spain while en route to the seaside village of Cadaques on the Costa Brava. I knew going into it that this was a ridiculously crowded place famous for attracting hordes of Dali devotees willing to wait hours to get into “the largest surrealistic object in the world”. But it was 9:30 in the morning (the museum opens at 9:00 in summer), we were stuck in Figueres until 2:00 in the afternoon waiting for Granny to arrive by train and I was hopeful we might get away with it.

Even at 9:30 there was a good 10 minute wait. While Jeff stood in line, I went over to the Tourist Office on the square as they were advertising City Tours of Dali’s Figueres (including entrance to the museum) for six euros more than the cost of the museum alone. I asked if taking the tour was a good way to avoid waiting in line and the woman at the Tourist Office assured me it was. If you want to see this museum and can’t arrive close to the opening time, signing up for the City Tour plus Dalis Museum at the Tourist Office seems to be a good option.

Once we got inside the Salvador Dali monument, the fun began. “Eloise loved the crazy installation of a Cadillac with strange people inside which seemed to invite bad behaviour from all the fascinated children who where climbing all over the car’s running board to get a better look. The guards didn’t seem to mind. There were all kinds of weird, perverse things to admire like the Bug Lady pictured above. There’s plenty of kinky and provocative stuff to keep the parents amused as well. Hey, Dali’s even buried in the basement. All in all, the Theatra-Musee Dali is a fun, theatrical experience. How good the art is, I leave to the critics. The gift shop, a very important criteria for Eloise, was excellent with a wide range of beguilingly surreal products that were fairly priced.

Emerging about an hour later, we had a chance to wander around Figueres which is a surprisingly attractive small city. We had a relaxing lunch of tapas near the station, picked up Grandma and began to make our way to Cadaques where Dali lived and worked from 1930 to 1982.

Addendum - Dali’s house in Port Lligat, above Cadaques, is also a museum which all my children, small and grown, love to visit. There is a stuffed bear in the front hall and a terrific psychedelic swimming pool with little matadors. You must make an appointment several days in advance but the experience is so amazing it is worth the additional effort.

Useful Addresses

Figueres Tourist Offices
Placa del Sol
Placa Gala i Salvado Dali (July 1 – September 15)
Place de L’Estacio, 7 (July 1 – September 15)

Tel: 972 50 31 55
Fax: 972 67 31 66
turisme@figueres.org
http://www.figueresciutat.com/

Theatre-Museu Dali
Placa Gala I Salvador Dali, 5
17600 Figueres
Tel: 972 67 7500
http://www.salvador-dali.org/

January – February/ November – December 10:30-17:45
March, April, May, June, October 9:30-17:45
July – September 9 – 19:45

Casa-Museu Salvador Dali
17488 Port Lligat (Cadaques)
Tel: 972 25 10 15
Fax: 972 25 10 83
By appointment only

Beating Crowds at Cadaques

My mother-in-law tells the story of once being seated next to a woman at Bar Meliton in Cadaques who was stroking a pet leopard. That was back in the 1950s when the picturesque fishing village on the Costa Brava was not only the home of Salvador Dali and summer magnet for artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Max Ernst, but also a fashionable destination for well-to-do bohemians.

It may be difficult to find much of that raffish charm in modern day Cadaques, which has become very popular and crowded, but the area is still breathtakingly beautiful and saved from many of the horrors of mass tourism by the tortuous access road which winds along the spine of the Pyrenees, finally plunging down to the isolated, white-washed village. For stylish surroundings with artistic sensibilities and a spectacular Mediterranean setting, Cadaques offers a real alternative to the Riviera that is as beautiful, less snooty and less expensive.

I should come clean here and say that I know nothing about restaurants or accommodations in Cadaques, since my leopard-friendly mother-in-law was fortunate and forward looking enough to acquire a share of a fisherman’s hut above Cadaques in the 1950s and while the hut has been extended and modernised since then, it is still the kind of place that once you get there, which isn’t easy, you rarely leave except to buy provisions, hike, swim, ride bikes (Lance Armstrong lived and trained nearby) and fool around in boats.

And my advice to anyone considering Cadaques is to also try to rent a house outside of town where you can delight in the intoxicating Mediterranean scenery and climate, leaving behind the aggravations of finding a parking place or listening to the folks who like to party all night. If you like to party all night, then go ahead and rent a house in Cadaques. Some good sites for finding Cadaques rentals are www.ownersdiret.co.uk, www.vrbo.com and www.le-guide.com .

As for restaurants, what I do know is that the legendary restaurant many critics consider the best in the world, El Bulli, is roughly 45 minutes away in neighboring Roses. Of course reservations are beyond impossible but this year I plan to follow the advice of Clothide Dusoulier in her delightful food blog, Chocolate and Zucchini, send an email on October 15 and pray I get a table.

Once accommodations are sorted out, there are plenty of wonderful things to do in Cadaques. Here are my top recommendations

 Hike from Cadaques towards the lighthouse through the spectacular Cap de Creus National Park on an ancient, but well marked trail. Bring your swimsuit and drinking water. The nicest coves and beaches are along the way. There is a bar/restaurant at the lighthouse, the view is spectacular and the walk should take roughly 2 ½ hours each way.

 Rent a bike and take the road to Cap de Creus and reward yourself with a drink at the lighthouse. Stop along the way and marvel at the beauty of the dramatic landscape and the amazing rock formations caused over the centuries by the wicked “Tramuntana” wind which can blow you right off your bike.

 Go snorkelling. There’s plenty to see under the sea but be sure to wear something on your feet. Sea urchins are everywhere. There are also several dive centres in town.

 Visit the Salvador Dali House-Museum in Port Lligat. Even if you are not a huge fan of Dali, the house where he and his wife Gala lived from the 1930s to the 1970s will blow your mind, from the life sized polar bear that greets you in the entry to the psychedelic, El Hambra-esque swimming pool with its hilarious matador-doll fountain - it's great theatre. Reservations are essential.

 Rent a boat and explore the spectacular coastline. Postpone this idea if the tramuntana is blowing. You can also rent kayaks and windsurfers.

 Sit at Bar Meliton, like Marcel Duchamp, and watch the world go by. I like to think that this is the closest thing to “Rick’s Place” from Casablanca you’ll find in the real world. Don’t miss the wall inside with Duchamp memorabilia. The lemon granitas are delicious.

As I read back over what I have written, I start to feel a little guilty. For years I have resisted writing about Cadaques. First, I promised our neighbours that I would not exacerbate the overcrowding problem by touting the areas considerable charms but this year I had a small epiphany. I finally realised that in addition to my mother-in-laws “petite paradise by the sea”, there must be other charming places to rent. Secondly, I realised that Cadaques would benefit from the interest of NoCrowds travellers. We may not all be world famous artists or celebrated bohemians but we do raise the tone of a place and appreciate getting off the tourist treadmill, valuing what is authentic and interesting about a destination. With a little luck finding a nice house and armed with the right information, it is perfectly possible to have a first class NoCrowds experience in Cadaques and the rewards are simply amazing.

Cadaques is accessible from several airports including Perpignan in France via Ryannair (one hour’s drive to Cadaques), Girona also via Ryannair (75 minutes ) or Barcelona (2 1/2 hours) in Spain. All things being equal, I would go into Perpignan and stay at one of my favourite, rather funky, hotels, the four-star Villa Duflot which I will cover in my next post.


Bar Meliton
Tel: (34) 972-258-201

El Bulli
Cala Montjoi, Roses, Spain
Tel: (34) 9 7215 0457
www.elbulli.com

Blue Rent Cadaques (boats)
www.bluerentcadaques.com
Tel: (34) 972 259 029

Bike Rentals
C/. Fontvella, 2
Tel (34) 972 25 91 01

We're Off to Spain

Last summer I wrote about a 1600 kilometer drive from London to Cadaques on the Costa Brava in Spain. Well, we're at it again and I'll be reporting on how to head south through Europe with no hassles and no crowds.

Photo of Salvador Dali swimming near Cadaques