Inland and westward from Cadaqués, across the protective mountains of the Cap de Creuce, lies Figueres, the hometown of Salvador Dalí. In the short trip across the mountains, the simplicity and beauty of the Costa Brava are replaced by a bored, tired, and cranky city of roughly 45,000 people. Perhaps the gloomy weather is responsible. Or, perhaps it is the lingering political discontent. In Figueres I witnessed the (in)famous Catalonian political discontent and separatist sentiment for the first time (see picture). Aside from this, nothing remarkable is happening in Figueres. The town looks almost identical to the ones I pass by on the train ride from Barcelona, with one notable exception. Roughly in the center of the city lies a giant, egg-adorned palace celebrating one man's zaniness.
The Teatre-Museu Dalí is housed in what used to be a municipal theater, before it was destroyed in the Spanish Civil War. The museum claims to be the "largest surrealistic object in the world," and its location next to the church where Dalí was baptized make it the perfect place to house the artist's collection. Furthermore, it is here that Dalí held his first exhibition of paintings. I expected to find the museum largely empty on our Thursday visit, but found just the opposite. Aside from the expected throngs of tourists, the museum was packed with young people, many high school-aged students. More shocking was the fact that they seemed genuinely interested in Dalí's works; his technique, form and structure (or lack thereof). This was only the first time I had witnessed what I would come to recognize as the Catalonian respect for the artist (more on this later).
Much of the art in Dalí's house of wonders makes the place feel like an amusement park more than a museum. It isn't the kind of place to make one pause and reflect on the dignity of man, but rather to ask how in the world he thought of, or created some of his most eccentric works. Some, like the portrait of Abraham Lincoln (composed of several smaller images, including a naked woman's backside) are truly impressive. It wasn't until I viewed the painting through my camera that I could make out Lincoln's portrait. Others made me scratch my head in confusion. For example, the courtyard with an old 1920's car parked in the center with a bronze statue of a big-breasted woman, all surrounded by life-sized Oscar statues looking down from the windows of the floors above. Another was the Mae West room, complete with the lips-shaped couch. The animatronic crucifixes and moving jewels were similarly puzzling. Perhaps the most impressive item in the whole museum was housed in the Dalí Jewels collection adjacent to the main theater building. A gold heart pendant is cutaway to reveal a core of ruby's that pulses like a beating heart.
Whatever one might think about Dalí's state of mind, his skills as a painter, jewelery craftsman, film maker, and architect are undeniable. Another interesting thing that I learned was that Dalí was in collaboration with Walt Disney to produce a surrealist cartoon titled Destino. Production was never completed, but Disney released a short version in 2003 based on work uncovered during the production of Fantasia 2000. While the Dalí Museum simultaneously impressed and confused me, I was also disappointed to learn that many of Dalí's most famous works, such as The Persistence of Memory and Swans Reflecting Elephants, are not housed in the museum but are scattered across other museums.
Figueres became even more strange over dinner. Our hotel, the Hotel Empordà, is a curious mix of new age modernism and old world class consciousness that make for an interesting stay. The spartan room looked like one of the modern showrooms at Ikea, but was quiet and surprisingly comfortable. Downstairs, however, in the Restaurant Empordà, one walks into an aura of stuffiness that seems stuck in 1929. White coated waiters attend to their guests every need, and it seems to be the kind of place where protocol governs everything from where you place your silverware to how you drink from your glass. Curiously enough, the restaurant was Dalí's favorite, which is surprising because the museum leaves the impression that Dalí wasn't a fan of anything formal or conventional. The dining room was empty when we arrived at 8, and only received a couple more tables of guests throughout our meal. The food was very good (reputed to be some of the best in Catalonia), but very expensive, and very different than the warm-hearted meal we enjoyed in Cadaqués.
The paradox between the socialist and separatist past of the region and the stuffy atmosphere of the restaurant are curious, to say the least. As we prepared to leave Figueres the next day, I was sad that we could neither afford a meal, nor procure a reservation, at the famed El Bullí in nearby Roses. Alas, there was plenty of food waiting for us in Barcelona.
