Hello Dalí on his birthday
THE excellent museums of Catalonia’s Figueres will be overflowing next year, the 100th anniversary of Salvador Dalí’s birth.
In 1974, the mayor asked the town’s most famous son to donate a painting for an art museum which at that time was still only on the drawing board. Dalí donated an entire museum instead, and it is now known as the Teatre-Museu Dalí, an apt name for the surrealistic jokey collection of tricks, illusions, paintings and sculptures. Easily recognised by the giant eggs on the roof, the museum is the second most visited in Spain after the Prado.
Even without the museum, the town is worth a visit for its lively pavement cafés and restaurants, and handsome Rambla.
Sovereign is introducing the Torremirona Hotel there next year — the Relais & Chateaux property sits by the first tee of the Torremirona golf course. A week’s B&B with flights costs £869-£1,099.
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WONDROUS ruins, rainforests and reefs are promised on new tours to Honduras with Trips Worldwide.
The Mayan civilisation left behind magnificently carved temples and pyramids at Copan, and the Museum of Mayan Culture there is “arguably the finest in the entire Mayan region” according to The Rough Guide, while the dusty modern town seeps Central American cowboy culture. Holidaymakers can explore both ancient and modern from a restored hacienda in the hills.
From Pico Bonito Lodge, a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World group in the national park of the same name, there are trails through dense rainforests, home of 275 bird species, as well as jaguars, ocelots, monkeys and otters; abundant river life can be spotted on canoe trips through the mangroves of the Cuero y Salado Wildlife Refuge.
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The world’s second largest barrier reef, dazzling white beaches and an utterly laid-back lifestyle are the magnets at Roatan, the Caribbean island 40 miles (64km) off the Honduran coast.
A tailor-made Ruins, Reefs and Rainforest tour with a night out in Houston, two in Copan, three in Pico Bonito and six in a beach hotel in Roatan with some meals costs £1,600-£1,800 including flights and transfers.