Cadaques

Cadaques sits in a bay on the Cap de Creus peninsula, cut off from the plain by the Sierra de Rodes and reachable only over a winding pass, which kept it a fishing village long after the rest of the Costa Brava was built up. Whitewashed houses climb to a sixteenth-century church with a large baroque altarpiece, and the streets are paved in rabassada, an unusual surface of upended slate. Salvador Dali spent childhood summers here and from 1930 lived at Portlligat, the next cove, in a house grown from a fisherman's hut over decades, now a museum entered by timed booking. Picasso, Duchamp, Man Ray, Lorca and Bunuel all passed through. The Cap de Creus headland beyond is a natural park of eroded schist.

What you actually see

• The white village - houses climbing to a church above the bay.
• The Dali house at Portlligat - a home grown from fishermen's huts, by booking.
• The slate paving - streets surfaced in upended stone.
• Cap de Creus - a wind-carved headland park beyond the village.

When to go

May, June, September and October; July and August fill the village and the single road in. The tramuntana wind blows hard for days at a time in any season and shapes the place.

Honest expectations

The Dali house takes small timed groups and books out weeks ahead; walk-up entry is not possible. Parking in Cadaques is very limited and paid. The road over the pass is winding and slow.

Nearby

Cap de Creus and Sant Pere de Rodes lie north; Figueres and the Dali Theatre-Museum are inland.