We went to the town of Figueres by train, it’s located North of Barcelona – almost all the way to France. When we got there we checked into the hotel to drop off our bags, freshen up and head to the Dali museum.

The museum was very interesting, it was designed by the artist himself and he lived there briefly. The outside of the building is decorated with the iconic eggs and local specialty bread. The art itself was super interesting to see and if you have time, i definitely recommend going to the museum. I think the most interesting part for me was seeing the jewelry he made – it even moves! He built some of the designs with cogs and moving parts like a clock so it moves when you’re looking at it.

We then went to Cadaques by bus, which is a smaller town to the East of Figueres. This was where Dali lived and painted for most of the time. He took three small fishermen houses and built it into one. Doing the tour and walking around the same streets as he did was incredible. The town was very quaint and I’ve already recommended it to other exchange students to go. There were two original unfinished paintings in the house still, all original furniture and decor! My favorite part of his house was his inspiration room. It was a bunch of random objects, different lights hung up so create different shadows and colors and mirrors to see things from different angles. In his bedroom he had a teeny tiny cage nailed to the wall to hold a cricket because he liked the sound of them. After the tour we hung out in the town for a while before we went back on the bus to get back to the hotel for dinner.

The next day, we went to this fort that was shaped like a turtle. Was super cool to do the tour because we had to ride in an open car to get around because the place was so huge. The fort had a long history – and most of it was preserved. But the people who occupied it during the Spanish Civil War purposefully exploded part of it to destroy some goods. There were tunnels (pitch black and super scary!) you could go into that had six rooms so they could hear the enemy coming – they never had to be used because the enemies never thought of that. These were built into the outer wall and marked with red doors. Then we toured a little more on the car and ended up going to the water tanks. You had to go down these really step steps underground and then you ended up in a room with two ladders on either side and vaulted ceilings. You climb up the ladders and there’s this huge pool in front of you. It’s so dark down there that we had to use our flashlights to see. We all got into this raft and the guide paddled us around the four chambers of water, the ceilings had calcium in them. It was so dark and eerie that you knew you didn’t want to be left alone down there. The water was 100% safe to drink. After the huge chambers of water we we said goodbye to our tour guide and we went to the horse stables to check out the rest of the fort. Then we went back to the train station and went back to Barcelona.