Cadaques and Mopeding around in Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus

A little known factoid: you can go to any moped rental agency in the world, show them your Italian passport, and they will immediately find you a red Vespa (or lookalike) to use for as long as you like. It's a birthright; a homeland for all people and a Vespa for every Italian.

Not really, I got really lucky for a change and found a rental agency that had been open for only two days, had only had one customer so far and was eager to do business. I was very worried that they would close for siesta, but it's run by a very nice German fellow, and they, amazingly, work a normal work day. Which means I could rent this at 1:30pm.  They did take a while to enter all my information into their system, as it seemed all new to them, but they were very accommodating and supremely nice (example: rentalguy: "you need to pay X in cash, ja?" me: "but I only have X/2 on me" rentalguy: "ok, ok, no problem, pay dat, ja."), and it was great to be on a European-designed, well-balanced, non-tiring piece of kit instead of a wobbly Japanese techno-creation.

The Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus was awe inspiring. It smelled of herbs and drought, with occasional grape-like fumes from vinyards. There are small bays everywhere, all sheltered from the north wind. Went to the farthest one, which turned out to be mostly empty but the people who were there were nudists.

This is actually an active vineyard

Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus

Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus

Parc Nacional de Cap de Creus. Went swimming here, with nekkid people

My favorite village in Spain is, by far, hands down, Cadaques. 

Garish statue at town entrance has Lady Liberty doing the "Zenga Zenga" dance

Cadaques is a pretty town, with a Greek look

View from town center

There is no marina. Every boat is moored to a buoy

Stumbled across a very weird scene by accident. Looked like a Greek wedding, except the main guy had a real, live crow on his shoulder. There were cameras everywhere. I was convinced it was a B-movie, but it turned out to be a Jose Cuervo commercial. Apparently, cuervo means crow in Spanish. No one could make out the Greek connection. The ad is apparently intended for Mexican audiences, so it'll be difficult to figure out how it comes out in the end.

One thing I noticed about actors is that they never ever squint. Ever. Even under the Spanish sun. I thought the main guy Gary might have had botox done for this purpose, but it would take the world supplt of botox to not squint under this sun. Every time he stopped, people would rush to provide some shade for him and powder his face. He does have a symmetric face, but I think what set him apart from the extras was not his looks but the way he made sure that the camera captured a good picture.

The crow was awesome. It got freaked out a few times and started flapping wildly (but Gary was a true professional, he carried on regardless, with a maniacal, flapping crow on his shoulder) so the same scene had to be done over and over again until the bird's temperament was just right for the scene. And it drank, constantly. Two tenders were constantly giving him a pink sippy cup. I can only assume that it was full of gin, just like for a real actor.

Jose Cuervo commercial being shot. Main guy, Gary, has a real live crow on his shoulder. Crow has two handlers, constantly needs to drink (just like a real actor) and is undoubtedly paid better than the extras in the back. 

[Six months after the trip, I found the resulting ad online. It's a huge disappointment, but nevertheless, here it is.]

Salvador Dali spent many years in Cadaques. His house can be viewed and many of his works are displayed in a museum in Figueres. The house tours at reasonable hours were all booked and Figueres was too far for the moped though.

Dali, in furs and espadrilles, in the Spanish sun. Overdoing the surreal.

Dali's house

Dali's house. Had to shoot in fisheye to do Dali justice.

Went back to town for a "late lunch" by Spanish standards at 7:30pm. Anything earlier than 8:30pm is lunch in Spain. Normal dinner hour is 10pm or so.

The church is just the right size for the town

These two guys were having a blast in this tiny two-person boat in the main harbor.