Postcard from... Cadaqués

There are many reasons to spend a week in the ebbing days of summer on the Costa Brava. I was brought here for family holidays when I was a child. Our leaky tent packed in the back of the Ford Zephyr, we’d head for the dawn Newhaven-Dieppe ferry and putter south, stealing grapes from French vineyards.

All I really seek is the usual combination of Mediterranean joys – the olive-tree terraces tumbling to the sea, the white-washed homes and the fishing boats in every bay. Many others come, however, to pay homage to the grand master of Surrealist art, Salvador Dali.

I make a very poor Dali pilgrim, though. After checking out at a lazy hour from my hotel, I make it around noon to Port Lligat in the next bay in hope of visiting what used to be his home there. I am thwarted, however. Even in September, the first empty slot is not until 8pm. I can’t wait, so I head to the city of Figueres, an hour inland and home to the Dali Museum, which he built before his death and where he is buried.

It is a suitably whimsical building and inside there’s Dali’s Cadillac and a large array of his art. True, I have never been a huge fan. But, that’s fine. There is a small café around the corner with best botifarra sausage you’ll ever taste.