We wake up and have delicious breakfast at the hotel again. It’s such a luxury. Then we pack up the car and head toward Ceret. We want to go to the modern art museum there, but our hostess at the hotel told us not to stay there long because they are having some crazy bull-fighting festival. We won’t stay the night, but we’ll still go spend the day.

//Stefan Note: Olaf loves himself some hotel bfast

We are in the foothills of the Pyrenees now, so it’s not as insane a drive. But there is a lot of bad traffic. Waze has us get off the main road several times. That’s sort of fun because it takes us on winding streets, through towns and up over hills. It’s still less than two hours to Ceret.

It’s warm and dry in Ceret. We are clearly not in the Pyrenees anymore. We go straight to lunch at a place we found on TripAdvisor, L’imprevu. The food is a bit different, being this close to Spain. We have pan con tomate with jambon, then either tuna or steak with sauteed onions. It was very good, and the women running the place were great to us.

We walk the couple of blocks over to the Museum of Modern Art. It’s clear they are preparing for a crazy party. Stalls line the street so we can’t even see what it normally looks like. We are glad we won’t be here later today. It’s going to get wild, and not the kind you can enjoy with your little kids.

The Museum is reasonably priced and just the right size. We walk through the temporary exhibit first, devoted to Maillol. It has a lot of his sculptures as well as sketches and models he used before making the sculptures. And there are photos of him working, taken by another artist. It is very nice.

//Stefan Note: Museum is cool, town is not.  It reminds me of the weekend I spent in Santa Barbara

We don’t want to hang around more here in Ceret. It’s just not the right time with the festival beginning. So we get in the car and drive down to Figueres, the home of Salvador Dali. I look on Booking.com and get a great deal on a hotel in the city center. It’s not the fanciest of spots, but it’ll be perfect for one night to see the Dali Museum. Then we will head up to Montpellier to be back on our original schedule.

The drive is a bit crazy because there is some major traffic. It feels like a real adventure when Waze takes us off the main road. We make it to Spain! It may be for only one day, but we are excited to have a little time here. The hotel is simple and clean. We’ll be sleeping in the same room again, but this time each kid has a twin bed. They like that. The kids play a game running and jumping onto my bed. Their positive attitude and playfulness go with them everywhere.

After a little rest time in the room, we walk around the city center, about 5 minutes away.

The kids get their first meat and cheese cones from a shop here. I love Spain! And I think they do too! This cone snack idea is one I think I may try at home sometime. It makes the snack more fun.

We walk all around the small town. It’s cute, but not as cute as many of the other towns we’ve visited. The reason to be here is the Dali Museum. And the Spanish food, of course. Lillian picks out some new sparkly sandals! And the kids run around the main square. At first they are happy with each other and then Oly is upset Lillian is pretending to be an airplane. I don’t know. 

We go to Sidreria Txot’s for dinner. We finally have a delicious plate of perfectly sliced jamon iberico. MMMMMMMmmmmmm. The kids have fun picking out tapas. Everything is so so good.

The food here is so good. Stefan lived in Spain for a bit between high school and college, so it also feels familiar to him. The language and the food. We are a little sad we don’t get to spend more time in Spain on this trip, but we are also very excited to see the other places we have planned to visit. We’ll just have to plan another trip to Spain soon.

We also order some cider, which comes with this silly guy that sits on top of the bottle and serves you more when you push a button on the back. This greatly entertains the kids.

We are a little stubborn about wanting to enjoy as much of our one night in Spain as possible. The kids start to have a tough time as it gets late. Poor Lillian gets super distressed when she can’t decide which dessert to order. This poor kids just needs to be in bed. Instead we let her eat ice cream with a side of cotton candy. That’s right: cotton candy. Excellent parenting here.

It’s a short walk back to our hotel, where we attempt to go to sleep in the same room again. It’s not the easiest. I need to sort through a few pictures before sleeping, so Oly just lays with me for a while. Lillian sleeps. This girl can sleep anywhere when she’s tired.