The Times and The Sunday Times (December 10, 2023) – Inside Salvador Dalí’s childhood home — and his old haunts. Our writer visits an immersive new museum at the artist’s striking childhood home in Figueres and takes a tour of his favourite spots in northeastern Spain

This northeasterly nook of Catalonia’s Costa Brava, between the Pyrenees to the north and the Mediterranean to the south, was the landscape that Dalí called his “ongoing inspiration” and is a recurring motif throughout his work.

While the Casa Natal Dalí took me on a tour of Dalí’s life, its near neighbour, the gigantic Dalí Theatre-Museum (£15; salvador-dali.org), just five minutes’ walk away, was designed by the maestro himself. It opened in 1974 and showcases his style at its most eccentric, not to say egocentric.

With its pink façade and giant white eggs on its roof, like decorations on a cake, this is where you’ll find not only the Mae West “lips” sofa, but also numerous grandiose paintings and drawings, trompe l’oeils and painted ceilings — as well as Dalí’s tomb in the crypt.

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