The Sea Cats of Cap de Creus

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e are about to leave our rented apartment in Barcelona, and drive north to Catalonia’s rugged Cap de Creus coast.

I lean over the wall of the top-floor patio, looking out over the narrow old quarter streets—layers of old masonry, weeds sprouting from upended ceramic tiles, Catalonian flags waving in the same wind that brings gulls from the sea.

This top-floor apartment is adjacent to the Museo Picasso, and as I look out from this patio, I can’t stop pondering the plausibility of a night entry into the museum via the roof. Not that I plan to steal a Picasso, but, could I? Looking at a 3D view of the La Ribera neighborhood in Google Earth, I learn that our rented flat is the only realistic entry point to the roof of the museum.

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obody needs to get uptight when talking about art theft and Picasso. The artist, whose paintings are stolen more than any other artist’s in the world, was at one point the prime suspect in the world’s most famous painting theft; the 1911 heist of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. And he did steal artwork himself, by paying a friend to lift prehistoric Spanish carvings from the same Paris museum. He famously said, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

Very few painting heists involve rooftops or digging through walls. But a 2002 theft at the Van Gogh Museum involved a daring rooftop entry after thieves used a ladder and rope to climb to the roof, break through a window, steal two paintings and then vanish, even though they tripped every infrared sensor and video camera in the building.

The problem with the Museo Picasso, however, is its old heavy Spanish tile rooftop construction. How do you penetrate that? But maybe it’s not the theft that interests me as much as the fact that there are navigable routes across the top of these rooftops.

There is a reason that street-level Barcelona, like, other southern European cities, smells like urine each morning. Sure, you can make some sort of justification for a lack of public restrooms in one of the most densely touristed cities in the world, but don’t blame someone for wanting to be a few stories above that.

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f you were to steal a Picasso, what would you steal, and why? This thought keeps rambling through my mind as the three of us walk through the streets of Barcelona to the rental car agency, our single carry-on thumping against the cobblestone.

My one rule for this trip: only one museum a day, and only thirty-five minutes inside. I have distinct memories of Europe from childhood. The colorful bees, the large snails, the gardens, the country bread I remember fondly. But not all those hours in museums and churches.

Jane says there is a French word for the very act of loafing casually through a city, her most favorite way to travel. By avoiding tickets and lines and the insides of big buildings, we keep a nine year old engaged. If there is a word for a traveler who mostly wants to wander around and pet cats, that describes my kid.

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he museum rule also helps with Jane’s desire to be a flâneur, an urban loafer-explorer. “Someone who wanders around looking at things as an art form,” she explains. How do you travel as a group of three when everybody has different interests?

I have seen many friends part ways permanently after traveling together, even after a short getaway. And I have seen many families come back from trips frazzled and angry.

Are itineraries and activities to blame?

When Kellan was a toddler, Jane wrote a parenting column for National Geographic Kids. The formality of having to write about it kept the questions of family travel on the surface for us. For many, a vacation with kids means a vacation for the kids. In the modern model of family travel, there is little room for flânerie. But which model of travel works best for us?

We leave Barcelona in the morning, giving wide berth to the street crews frantically powerwashing the alleys. The highway north is quiet, the sky is blue, and the poppies are just beginning to break free in the lowlands of Catalonia. To the northwest are the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees.

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e stop at Aiguamolls de l'Empordà, a massive wetlands along the Mediterranean coast, and follow a trail that begins in the plains. This trail passes through freshwater marsh, ponds and lakes, into brackish marshes and finally saltwater tidelands.

Today it’s Greater Flamingos, Black-winged Stilts, White Cranes and Water Rails. But it’s a productive marsh. Half of Europe’s species have been seen here. Any time I see my favorite bird, the stilt, my heart flutters. Here, they are whirring about over the wet meadows at the end of trail, their long red legs dangling in the air.

This is when I realize which painting I would steal from the Museo Picasso. I would ignore the most notable and historic paintings from this collection. Science and Charity, Portrait of the Artist’s Father. I would take The Pigeons, because it is bright, happy and captures the warmth of seaside Mediterranean.

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rom the lowlands of Aiguamolls, we ascend into a drier coastal headlands, to the white-washed coastal Mediterranean town of Cadaqués, the easternmost point of mainland Spain.

For the next three days, we’ll practice small town flânerie, with no agenda. As I take my first solo walk through the small, narrow and steep streets, I learn that the town is almost empty. Small restaurants crop up on nearly every street, but tourist season is months away, making Cadaqués feel like it’s our very own.

“And,” I tell my son when I return to the flat, “there are a lot of cats. Cats on every street!”

Kellan’s shoes are somehow magically tied, and he must see those cats. The heart of Cadaqués is built on a steep hill, and its signature church is built at the top of that hill. As we climb the stairs and alleys, I am reminded of the graphic novel, The Lions of Valletta, by Ursula Murray Husted, which begins with a beautifully drawn panel of a cat sleeping between ancient stone sculptures. The panel quotes Italo Calvino; “The city of cats and the city of men exist one inside the other, but they are not the same city.”

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e pet the cats of Carrer de la Font Vela, and the cats of Carrer Llampec, and the one cat of Carrer Bellaire. We find only a pair of cats on Riera de Sant Vicenç. We climb the stairs to pet the cat of Carrer de Santa Margarida. When we return back to the flat, exhausted, Kellan asks if we can pet cats again.

For two days, we walk the streets of Cadaqués, looking for stray cats. Kellan creates a backstory for all these cats, explaining as we walk up a set of stairs, that the cats that live at the top of Cadaqués have created a harmonious and successful society. Pointing to a stray near sea level, he explains that there are other cats who also want to live there, but that the higher-elevation cats want to keep them out. He shows me the border between the two societies, making me circle the center of Cadaqués, so he can draw a demarcation line. He tells me that the lower elevation cats, creeping along rooftops, and sitting in dim shadows, are attempting a siege. They too, desire the fruits of high elevation Cadaqués.

These stories consume us, as we build our imaginary cat history of Cadaqués.