Friday 9 October - Figueres & Dali

[Photos: Figueres ramblas, Dali Museum, Port Lligat, Interesting balconies ]

We were all looking forward to seeing what Mr Dali had to offer us. I am a great fan of his surrealism, right back to university days when I had "The Dream" on my wall. It's a reasonable run from Laroque to Figueres where the main Dali museum is. The border is a joke – we have found out that it runs through the main street of Le Perthus and crosses it part-way down. As a result, on one side of just half of the street, there are the cheap booze barns we saw in La Jonquera in Spain.

We did make a stop in La Jonquera to pick up some nibbles that we haven't found in France, before continuing on to Figueres. The border crossing is very clear in the surrounding countryside, perhaps because of the difference between France and Spain, also the crossing of the Pyrenees. Whatever the reason, the Spanish side has a certain scruffiness to it that we last saw in Italy. Maybe there is less money about to pay for streetworks, but the difference is very clear. Here in Laroque, the amount of money the local authority has to spend is obvious. The streets have lots of street furniture, there are little bollards and railings everywhere, the pavements are paved with tiles and exposed aggregate. In Italy and Spain, it is more like New Zealand. No doubt the fact that half the ratepayers only spend a few weeks a year here, not using services for the rest of the year, makes a huge difference.

Figueres was quite a big town, about the size of Nelson. We found ourselves a carpark easily, got a map from the information centre, and settle d down with a Spanish breakfast deal to consider our plans. For 3€ we got a café au lait, a croissant and fresh orange juice. This all bodes well for our travels in Spain, as that is clearly better value than anything we have seen in France. The centre of Figueres consists of a lovely ramblas with big trees and an open area in the centre, full of men chatting away at 11 in the morning. We enjoyed ourselves looking in a few shops – lots of lovely things to buy including lots of attractive ceramics.

Passed a toy museum on the way to the Dali, with displays of full size and Vitra miniatures of famous Bauhaus chairs which I very much enjoyed.

The Dali Museum houses half of Dali's own collected works. You may or may not like his work, but whether you do or not, there is no denying his genius. The thing that struck us all most was his versatility. Some of his early works, before he chose surrealism, were clearly very good. Later on he experimented with all manner of different styles, and all of them very well executed. The museum is a fascinating building in itself. The outside on two faces has goosebumps, which on closer inspection turn out to be ceramic three-cornered breads, and it is topped with giant white eggs. Inside there are off sculptures, including an old American car with a massive (2 metre tall) bronze hood ornament. The trail through the museum goes up and down through dozens of rooms, with each dedicated to a different phase of his career. His main love, Gala, appears in many works, even in stereo 3D at times. We all were most impressed with a series of paintings done showing human figures composed of rocks. Very clever. There were not many of his really odd surrealist works.

We were tempted to buy one of his weird long-and-spindly-legged elephants, but prices were a bit steep, and they would be tricky to keep in one piece on the way home, so flagged it away. In the museum shop, you could buy a nice brass chair a mere 12,000€ or door handles for 1200€ apiece. Didn't see many being bought!

By the time we had gone right round the 22 rooms, we were seriously hungry, so sat down in the ramblas for an excellent lunch of risotto, rabbit, lamb and patates variously. It went down very well. We then jumped back in the car to go to Port Lligat where Dali spent most of his last years in a series of fishermen's cottage he had connected. In books here at Laroque, it looked a fascinating home, complete as he left it. It turned out to be quite a long way, more than we expected, but it was a lovely place when we got there. Unfortunately, it turned out that they only let a small group through every 10 minutes, and the last tickets for the day had already been sold. Very disappointing, as nothing we had seen had indicated that this was the case. Not to worry, it was an interesting drive.

We had expected that we would be able to head up the coast to get back to France, but the GPS was having none of it, and sent us back to Figueres. We took the opportunity to visit a shop we had wanted to go back to after the Dali Museum, but which had closed for the siesta. They take the siesta even more seriously in Spain than France. In the latter it means most places are closed from 12:30 to 2:00pm. In Spain it is more like 12:30 to 4:00pm. It is a real hassle for tourists, as it leaves a big chunk of the day with most places closed. Good for museums that generally stay open, but a hassle for everything else, specially as tourists on the move have nowhere to stop and have a snooze.

We bought a nice espresso set (you can never have too many) we had seen earlier, at a price well under half that of some other sets in Port Lligat town that we had visited, then back in the car for the trip home to Laroque. All up it had been a long day, and I was well bushed from all the driving by the time we made it home. We had been hoping to be able to spend a bit of time n the sun, but it refused to come out properly despite us opening the pool cover to encourage it. Notwithstanding the long day, Karen and I stayed up to 2am working on the book (Karen's 3^rd post-1am night in a row) – proofreading the whole thing, writing up required fixes, and then working through the full index.