Today, instead of continuing up the coast, we headed inland 20km to the town of Figueres to visit the iconic museum of Salvador Dali (1904- 1989). In the 1960’s when Dali was asked by the mayor of Figueres, where he was born, to donate a painting to the city’s museum, Dalí decided to do much more than that, he bought and transformed the town's theater—which was nearly destroyed during the Spanish Civil War—into the Dalí Theater and Museum.
We were concerned about what we would do with our loaded bicycles but after some on-line searching, Steven found out that the bus station would store our panniers for 2 Euros a bag. A bit pricey but well worth the peace of mind. We rode our empty bikes to the museum, locked them to a tree and as there wasn’t a line, purchased our tickets and entered the wild world of surrealism. It actually isn’t that wild, especially by today’s standards, but one can see how Dali likely would have been a forgotten post-impressionist or cubist had he not made himself into something different. We wandered through the four floors and numerous galleries making some sense of his immense body of work, his fertile imagination and his grasp of commercial promotion and branding that made him wold famous. Good thing we liked the museum so much because the ride there was mostly through hot, dusty landscapes of industrial farming. On the way back we abandoned the bike path and took the paved road that was not too busy on a Sunday afternoon.
By the time we got to Roses we were melting and ready for a swim, then a light supper admiring the evening sky and planning tomorrow’s trip over the hill to Cadaques.
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles) Total: 191 km (119 miles)
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Scott AndersonPretty disgusting - we’ve spent six nights in Figueres and still haven’t been to the Dali museum. Reply to this comment 1 year ago
ann and steve maher-wearyNext time! We loved it. He is so quirky, around every corner was something different. We split up and wandered each on our own. Then we sat in the garden and talked about what we saw. It was amazing to find out that we each missed things the other was drawn to, so we went back to show each other what we’d missed. A great day! Reply to this comment 1 year ago
