Holiday in L'Escala, Spain - 24th September - 8th October

Day 6 - Dali's museum

Overnight, we'd had more thunderstorms and torrential rain and some of the electric switches had tripped. It was quite eerie, and I was glad when it was morning!

It was pouring when we woke up, and we were glad we'd booked to go to the Dali Museum in his hometown of Figueres. We left at 10am, took some recycling and rubbish to the bins, and followed the Google map directions on my phone, retracing the route of when we arrived on Sunday. The rain had stopped and, in the distance, towards Figueres, it looked a bit brighter.

We entered the busy town and managed to park in a dimly lit and tightly spaced multi-storey car park near the museum, which was already attracting crowds of people. As we were a bit early for our timed 11am arrival, we had a lovely coffee and pastry at a café opposite which only cost Sophie 10 euros!

Just before 11am, we walked over the road to the museum. The outside is striking:

There were crowds of people waiting, and at 11am we were allowed in. The first hall was mad - a boat on top of a pillar of old tyres, and underneath a black car with models inside (one looked like an alien) with a huge sculpture of a woman standing in front of it.

All around the curved walls were golden figures in little alcoves. What does it all mean? Dali worked on the museum in the 1970s and designed everything about the building and all that's inside. He is buried in a crypt under the old stage.

We started the tour and there are about twenty rooms showing his art and sculptures. It was very, very busy with a lot of people looking at his artwork. 

One of my favourites

Portrait of Picasso

There are a lot of recurring images in Dali's work - the human form, Venus, the colour blue (he took holidays in Cadaques and bought a house in nearby Port Lligat) and of course, the melting clocks. I personally would not take young children to the museum. A range of black and white artwork was disturbing and almost pornographic in its images. Some of it was completely different to what you would consider a classic Dali painting but a lot of it was strange and surreal, and very dreamlike - he was a member of the Surrealist movement.

Keith didn't feel well, whether it was because it was quite warm inside the building or because there were crowds of people, so he sat in the first auditorium and waited for us. The building was on many levels, and it was interesting to look down and see people milling about below:

Sophie and I had a thoroughly good time and found it all very interesting, if not a little confusing. Just what was going through his mind? Many of the paintings featured his wife Gala, who he adored.

As I said, some of the artworks were disturbing and hard to understand:

Corncobs for a necklace and ants crawling over her face?

No idea what this was, but it was creepy!

After a while we were all Dali-ed out, so we retrieved Keith and made our way outside, first calling into the gift shop where I bought a picture (the one of the blue houses) and a little notebook. Sophie bought another postcard and attempted to buy a tile and a hanging decoration in another gift shop, but the saleswoman kept disappearing, so she gave up!

We decided to go in search of some lunch, and we found a delightful little restaurant nearby serving tapas. Keith ordered grilled chicken with a baked potato while Sophie and I had a Spanish omelette, sausage and patatas bravas. With bread, it was a bit heavy on the carbs but delicious and very filling!

Hams for sale

Lunch was lovely and it was great to sit, and people-watch. Keith felt a bit better, so we went for a stroll around the town, which is lively and bustling. We found a gorgeous little wine and spirits shop and couldn't resist buying some wine, cava and a bottle of La Chouffe for Keith. Sophie also found a new friend:

It had started to rain so we returned to the car and drove back, very easily, to L'Escala. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing, and we decided to eat in again as none of us was really that hungry, and it was pouring with rain! Sophie and I popped to the Spar and then it was time for Scrabble, a lovely bottle of white Rioja and a relaxed dinner. We even tried our red wine from the barrel after the meal and it was lovely and very drinkable!

Our evening's entertainment was the film, The Terminal, on Netflix starring Tom Hanks. Tomorrow we are booked for dinner at a restaurant in the town, so it'll be back to meals out!