The Costa del Dali

 Long derided as the spiritual home of the straw donkey and bucket-and-spade brigade, the Costa Brava, that stretch of fading resorts between Barcelona and the French border, is in danger of becoming fashionable again.
Part of the reason is Salvador Dali.
The eccentric Spanish surrealist artist, who was born and lived most of his life in the region, bequeathed his memorial museum to the town of Figueres.
It's now the second most-visited museum in Spain.
Along with Cadaques, a former fishing village where Dali lived most of his life, Figueres has been quick to cash in on the connection with the area's most famous native son.

There are touches of Dali everywhere: Dali cafes and bars; a Dali statue overlooking the seafront in Cadaques; a Dali sundial on the façade of a local hotel; even a 'Dalicattessen' in Figueres.
Dali's mystique has given Figueres and the northern Costa Brava a new cachet.
It's not just about sun and sand any more; it's about art, too.
Figueres entertains tourists by the coachload to visit the surreal Teatre-Museu Dali, a fantastic fortress-like, reddish-ochre building topped with rows of the artist's trademark eggs.
Many then make the pilgrimage to Cadaques, 30km away on the coast.
Just outside the town, in the village of Port Lligat, is the Casa-Museu Dali, where the artist and his equally eccentric wife Gala lived from 1948 until her death in 1982.
The house, built over the remains of a pair of fishermen's cottages, is topped with yet more eggs.
There are rococo camels in the grounds and a swimming pool apparently modelled on the Alhambra in Granada.
The interior is much as the artist left it, with heavy, ornate candelabra and bizarrely theatrical furnishings.
The third stop on the Dali tour is the Castell Gala Dali, a Gothic castle the painter bought for his wife in the village of Pubol, 30km south of Figueres.
Decorated with the usual Daliesque eclecticism, it boasts cement elephants, classical tapestries and hundreds of portraits of Gala who, incidentally, is buried in the crypt below.
That the Dali mystique is fuelling a new tourist boomlet in the region is ironic.
When he was alive, the artist campaigned to spare Cadaques and Port Lligat from the excesses of mass tourism.
But the Costa Brava has long been tourist country.
It was invaded first by sun-starved Brits in the early 1960s.
The Costa Brava's advantages were that it was hot, cheap and the easiest bit of Spain to get to.
Tourists would be decanted straight from overnight coaches or lumbering prop planes on to the beaches of the burgeoning resorts of Lloret de Mar and Roses.
Jet passenger planes changed all that.
By cutting the flying time to the Costa del Sol, holidaymakers could jet off to beaches in the far south of the country, where it was even hotter and just about as cheap.
So in the 1970s and 1980s, while the south of Spain was buried in vast resort hotels, the Costa Brava languished.
This was no bad thing: though it would be stretching a point to call the Costa Brava unspoilt, it has been a forgotten part of the Spanish coast.
Figueres is a provincial market town, with an old-fashioned central Rambla, a tree-lined promenade and pavement cafes, for the evening paseo (stroll).
Cadaques, on the coast, can be reached only from Figueres by one winding, narrow, mountain road.
Otherwise, travellers get there by boat from Roses.
Partly because of its isolation, and its position in a narrow cove surrounded by hills, it was never concreted over with hotels and holiday chalets, and it retains the whitewashed charm of a little Spanish fishing village.
The local fishermen, though, are now in a distinct minority.
Today, Cadaques is a stylish, slightly raffish tourist resort with artistic leanings - apart from Dali, Picasso, Magritte and Bunuel spent time there.
Cobbled lanes lined with boutiques and art galleries lead up to the church of Santa Maria at the top of the town.
In the 1960s it was known as the 'St Tropez of Spain', and attracted middle-class bohos with artistic sensibilities.
They, or at least their children, still return here.
The other resorts along the northern Costa Brava, Roses and Llanca and Port de la Selva, never quite acquired the bohemian chic of Cadaques.
Developed to serve the package holiday crowd, they aspired to provide fun family beach holidays, with food and wine thrown in.
These days, in their faintly dated way, they have an easy-going appeal.
Some may miss the five-star resorts and chic clubs of the Costa del Sol, but for slobbing out on the beach or by the pool, you can't beat the Costa Brava.
And, of course, if you get tired of the sun and sand, there's always the Dali cultural trail.
Travel facts
Getting there: Ryanair (www.ryanair.com tel: 0871 246 0000) flies from Stansted to Perpignan in France, from £29 one way.
Perpignan is 30 minutes from Figueres. Buzz (www.buzzaway.com tel: 0870 240 7070) flies to Gerona, 30 minutes from Figueres, from £100 return. Restaurants: Ampurdan, Antiga Carretera de Franca, Figueres. Duran, Carrer Lasauca 5, Figueres.
Must see: Teatre-Museu Dali, Placa Gala-Salvador Dali, Figueres.
Avoid: Empuria-brava, a massive development of near-identical holiday homes surrounded by canals on the Bay of Roses.
Hotel: The Ampurdan is one of the most pleasant in Figueres.
Outside Cadaques, the Hotel Port Lligat is a peaceful, two-star hotel.