Arrival

I have arrived and am still absorbing my surroundings... that will take a while since they are rather incredible. I'm in the house of Dora Maar, an artist and a mistress of Picasso. Her presence is still very much here; art, photographs, and books about Dora Maar, surrealism, and Picasso, as well as a variety of works by and books about other artists, all breathe life into the house. The house itself is built out of, and on top of, limestone bedrock, and the rock pokes out of the walls and stairways in seemingly random places and reminds you that you are attached to the hill. We are pretty much at the top of the town, all of which is perched on this hill, sort of organically, thanks to the limestone construction, which makes the buildings seem to grow out of the hill. The house is rather tall, and my room is at the top of the winding stone staircase, so from my windows I see the tippy-tops of the cypress trees, the sky, and a pretty incredible view. 

The first night there was a thunderstorm, which from my aerie was fabulous. The windows aren't covered, so from bed I could see just the sky, full of lightning, and hear those cypress trees blowing and the shutters clattering.

It's actually possible to get lost in the house, although it has only four bedrooms. From my room at the top you descend a few stairs to another bedroom, then further down to two more bedrooms, then another level to the living rooms. There are several doors to the outside & terraces, and another staircase that sprouts off at that level, going up to workrooms and down to office and gallery space. If I take the wrong staircase I can't get back to my bedroom. There's even an elevator in a space that was blasted out of the limestone bedrock, so that from the garage you go through a medieval-looking arched passageway-tunnel and find yourself, surprisingly, at a very modern elevator. It's very bat-cave.