Figueres Travel Guide

219km (136 miles) N of Barcelona, 37km (23 miles) E of Girona

In the heart of Catalonia, Figueres once played a role in Spanish history. Philip V wed María Luisa of Savoy here in 1701 in the church of San Pedro, thereby paving the way for the War of the Spanish Succession. But because it was heavily bombed during the Spanish Civil War, this small, provincial city in northern Catalunya doesn’t have many historic buildings to explore anymore.

It does, however, have Salvador Dalí. The great surrealist painter and showman was born here in 1904, staging his first exhibition in the municipal theater while still a teenager. In 1960, seeking to capitalize on the artist’s international fame, the mayor of Figueres invited him to donate an artwork to the city. Dalí replied that he would donate and design an entire museum and chose as its site the same theater where he had first exhibited, which had been destroyed by fire in the Civil War. The main, and compelling, reason to visit Figueres is to tour the strange and wonderful world of the Teatre-Museu Dalí, one of Spain’s most-visited tourist destinations.