Cadaqués is a municipality in the Alt Empordà region, located on the eastern side of the Cap de Creus Peninsula. The fact that Cadaqués is located in the middle of these rocky massifs in contact with the sea meant that the town was practically isolated from the rest of the continent until the end of the 19th century, when its only outlet was the sea. The first documents that mention Cadaqués date back to around the year 1000. Of the old fortified city there remain a Bastion, which currently houses the Town Hall facilities, and a portal with a lowered arch that overlooked the beach.
At the highest point of the old town we find the Iglesia Santa María. It is a late Gothic building, begun in the mid-16th century and finished in the 18th century. Inside we find a prodigious baroque wooden altarpiece made in 1725 and gilded in 1788, designed by Jacint Moretó and carried out by Pau Costa. Cadaqués' relationship with art is established through the painter Salvador Dalí, who, although born in Figueres, was linked to the neighboring bay of Portlligat where his curious residence was built in the 1940s.
Many years before, however, Cadaqués was already the place chosen to spend short or long periods of tranquility by many artists and intellectuals who gave it great prestige and renown, especially in the circles of painters and plastic artists.
