172/250

I first learned to read braille when I was twelve years old. My blind music teacher gave me extra lessons during lunchtime and today they have paid off. For last night it appears that I was not the only one who ate well! Any novice in braille can clearly read the lumps and bumps on my back as compliments to the Chef!

Despite this, I am so impressed with the 255km-long stretch of cliffs, coves and rocky promontories that make up the Costa Brava, I decide to drag out my stay a little longer...

I enjoy my DIY breakfast of Pan Con Tomate on the cliffs overlooking the sea. I then run part of the Coast Brava Way along one of the rocky fingers that reach into the sea. The end point is a beautifully secluded cove with a tiny stone beach hut. I want to move in :)

When it comes time to leave, I unnaturally layer up for the short journey to Figueres is a pleasant town with unmissable attraction: Salvador Dalí.

As a retrace my route along the long and winding road, I feel a certain degree of smugness as I watch hordes of people on pedal bikes and motorbikes, in cars and vans and by the coach load snake their way to Cap de Creus. As they arrive en-mass, they will destroy one of the very things I love about the place; the isolation and tranquility.

After a pitstop at a non-descript hotel that is home for the evening, I make my way to the town's main attraction; the Teatre-Museu Dalí. It is housed in the remains of a medieval fort, which has now been given a touch of surrealism by Dalí when he decorated the top of the building with eggs, a symbol of future life, and filled the entire front with loaves of bread as symbols of basic nutrition.

The queue to enter is ridiculous! It stretches around the medieval square at least twice so I decide to get an ice cream and watch the World go by. I try to be sneaky and use free wifi to book tickets for early tomorrow instead. My idea was not as cunning or original as I thought, since the tickets for tomorrow are also sold out.

A new plan is hatched and when I return to the Teatre-Museu Dalí an hour before closing time, the queue is one Spanish family squabbling about who should pay. 'Theatre-museum' is an apt label for this trip through incredibly fertile imagination of the artist. It is full of surprises, tricks and illusions. My favourites are the stereoscopic paintings. This where Dalí paints two nearly identical images, with minor colour and shape variations, such that when two images are blended together they give the impression of a 3D object. The raw beauty of the rough sketches also caught my eye. Now I do not claim to understand everything I see inside this monument to Surrealism, but there are pieces that make me smile, there are pieces that challenge me to think and there are pieces that do both. For me, this is what Art should do.

As I wander endlessly along the streets of Figueres looking for something to satiate my hunger, I spy Basque cider poured from on high from the barrel (as I am informed it is supposed to be). I perch myself on the wooden benches of Sidreria Txot's and enjoy an evening of cider drinking whilst tucking into plates of pintxos and raciones.