Figueres
Over Easter vacation (Semana Santa), we spent a long weekend in Figueres, north of Barcelona near the French border. The city is famous for being Dali's home town. Ed and I had been there briefly in 2003 and we thought the kids would enjoy the Dali museum.
We ate a couple of good meals in Figueres. At a Basque sidreria, all the desserts were served with a giant pouf of cotton candy as a garnish.
One of our most memorable meals to date was at Bocam. Everything we had was excellent, my arroz negro with cuttlefish and squid was very photogenic.
The Dali Theater-Museum is a surrealist extravaganza, created by Dali from a ruined municipal theater building. The building exterior is ornamented with replicas of the local bread, pa de crostons.
It is spring here, and beautiful and sweet-smelling wisteria vines are in bloom everywhere.
Like most towns, Figueres has its own Rambla, this one slightly elevated above the street level and especially beautiful.
Just outside of Figueres is the Castel of Saint Ferdinand (Sant Ferran), the largest fortress in Europe, with an enclosed area of a staggering 320,000 square meters (3.4 million sf). Built in the 18th century after the French/Spanish border moved south, leaving older Spanish fortifications marooned in French-controlled lands, it continued to be used through the Spanish civil war. The scale of the fortress was amazing. We toured the interior, and then Ed and I returned by ourselves the next day to walk around the outside of it. Located on a gentle rise outside the town, it affords sweeping views of the country around Figueres and you can see the Mediterranean, 30-40km away.
