The tramontana wind, bitterly cold this mid-November Monday, howls furiously through the narrow, steep streets of Cadaqués, deserted today, with closed doors and windows and drawn shutters on bars and restaurants, all displaying signs announcing extended holidays. Quietude, tranquility, and the only sound, the onslaught of the tramontana. This is the Cadaqués that the Japanese painter Shigeyoshi Koyama loves, the Cadaqués he so desperately misses during the summer, when the revelry and noise take over the town day and night, forcing him into exile in the quiet village of Vilanova de la Muga until September, when the summer visitors leave and Cadaqués returns.

Construction of the new Martín Faixó winery (DO Empordà) on the Sa Perafita hill in Cap Creus will begin next year, in 2026, after a twenty-year struggle to obtain permits. This is how Rafa Martín explains it: son of the beloved Anna Mota, theAnita from Cadaqués, who died last June, and father of winemaker Ester and Rafel Martín Faixó. At the top of the Sa Perafita hill, located a few kilometers before reaching the town of Cadaqués, the family has a farmhouse, converted into a hotel and also a winery. There, in the offices, Rafa and his daughter Ester show the approved plans, which they will finally be able to translate from paper to land. "The road we've traveled hasn't been easy, but we can finally start building it here, right in front of us, where we are right now," says Rafa Martín one bright sunny morning.

Cadaqués is a land of artists. The list of great creators fascinated by the bohemian atmosphere and idyllic setting of this town at the foot of Cap de Creus is very long, from the 19th century to the present day. Shigeyoshi Koyama, Marc Aleu, and Richard Hamilton are three of the most important, and this summer, for the first time in history, the Alto Empordà municipality has dedicated a joint exhibition to them at the Cadaqués Gallery, which can be visited until August 24.

Cadaqués's two trendy bars have monosyllabic names, are located next to each other, serve Catalan cuisine, have a good Empordà wine list and a good drinks list, and have one special feature: the owners of each bar know each other, get along, and have managed to keep all their guests' tables full. They are called La Sal (pl. des Portitxó, s/n), by the cocktail bartender Manel Vehí and Josep Alà, and El Set (pl. des Portitxó, 8), by the Cadaqués native Joan Rodés.

It's Wednesday, the Virgin of Carmen, and in Cadaqués everything is ready for the afternoon procession of the boats; there will also be mass and a sardine feast. And if there's a festival in Cadaqués, there's no shortage of corks. In fact, they're never missing any day of the year, but it's in the summer when Mercè Cabrisas, from the Can Cabrisas bakery, sells 4,000 a day. If you go mid-afternoon to buy them and haven't ordered them, you probably won't be able to try them. "But this happens as it happens, because yesterday, for example, there were some left," she says. Each one costs 0.90 euros, and in addition to selling them in bulk, it's also traditional to buy them in boxes of 15 (13 euros) and 30 (26 euros). The boxes have the unique profile of the Alt Empordà town drawn on them, and this very wrapping is also what has made the corks popular, identified with the town.

The white church of Santa María in Cadaqués was packed to the rafters. Yesterday, Tuesday, the townspeople said goodbye to Ana Mota Cortés, who died Monday morning as a result of a urinary tract infection, just three days shy of her ninetieth birthday. Her children remember that Anita arrived in Cadaqués as a teenager with twenty duros in her pocket. "She worked hard so that her children would prosper, so that we would work, so that we would follow a good example, and today I have to say that none of the four children even smoke," says the eldest son, Rafa Martín, who adds that his mother came to Cadaqués to be near her boyfriend, Guillermo Martín, whom she married when she was eighteen.

There are days when you go out on your bike and everything flows. You leave Rustik, the cycling café and bakery in Bellcaire d'Empordà, head towards the sea, head out along dusty trails, swim in a hidden cove, suffer climbing a lonely hill, and end up crossing wetlands in silence. This route is exactly that: a long, intense, and wild adventure through the most authentic Empordà.

Cadaqués, with its idyllic village charm of whitewashed houses at the foot of Cap de Creus and the birthplace of Salvador Dalí, is one of the most attractive and popular spots for sun and beach tourism on the Costa Brava. In winter, the town is home to around 2,800 people, but in summer, the population increases exponentially to nearly 30,000, multiplying its usual population by ten. During the tourist season, long lines form on the only winding road leading to the town from Roses, and parking is almost impossible to find.