Spain: Crossing the Greenwich Meridian

All good things have to come to an end. I took this photo of the arch marking the Greenwich Meridian while on the way back to Madrid by bus from Barcelona. That's the end of our Spanish adventure. We're now in Doha, Qatar for an eight hour layover before flying back to Manila. But I won't be in Manila for long because in a few days, I'm flying to Chicago!

Spain: Girona along the Riu Onyar

On the way back from Figueres, we made a stopover in Girona, a charming old town along the Onyar River. One of it's imposing landmarks is the Catedral de Santa Maria Mare de Déu said to have the widest Gothic nave in the world at 22.98 m (75.39 ft), and the second widest nave after the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Sad to say, we didn't go inside. It just irks me when they charge an entrance fee to visit a church.

It was a pity we only had an hour to explore the city. Add to the fact that it was raining. And since we arrived during siesta, shops were closed and there was nothing much to see. But it was a well-preserved old town, very much worth the visit.

Spain: Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres

If you plan to do an out-of-town trip while in Barcelona, the museum of Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí i Domènech in Figueres is at the top of the list. So for our last full day, we made sure to visit. They say that the Dalí Theatre-Museum is the largest surrealistic object in the world. And inside, one would find the the striking and bizarre images Dalí is known for in his surrealist work

The museum was created by the artist himself while he was still alive in the former Municipal Theatre of his hometown Figueres. The building was destroyed at the end of the Spanish Civil War and on its ruins, Dalí built his museum.

Indeed, a trip to the museum was a unique experience for me. I got to experience and enjoy the unusual work and thought of this artistic genius. As Dalí himself explained: “It’s obvious that other worlds exist, that’s certain; but, as I’ve already said on many other occasions, these other worlds are inside ours, they reside in the earth and precisely at the centre of the dome of the Dalí Museum, which contains the new, unsuspected and hallucinatory world of Surrealism.”

The museum opened in 1974. He was later buried in a cryot in the museum after his death in 1989. Entrance to the museum is 11€ which includes the Dalí Jewels exhibition. The trip from Barcelona to Figueres is about two hours. Trains leave the Passeig de Gracia and Barcelona Sants station and start at 8,55€ depending on the class and type of train.