Village
Figueres is the capital of the Alt Empordà comarca, at the northeastern end of the province of Girona, with 49,689 inhabitants (INE 2025) and the demonym figuerense. Its strategic position near the French border makes it an important transport hub: the AP-7 motorway and several national roads pass through its municipal area, and it has two railway stations, the historic one on the international Barcelona-Cerbère line, and the new Figueres-Vilafant, connected by TGV to France and by AVE to Madrid. Known worldwide for the Dalí Theatre-Museum, it retains a lively arcaded Rambla and a rich heritage around the castle of Sant Ferran. The climate is marked by the tramontana, a cold, dry north wind that blows all year round.
Monument
An 18th-century military fortress built according to the system of the engineer Vauban, under the direction of the military engineers Pedro and Juan Martín Cermeño; with more than 320,000 m², or 550,000 counting its glacis, it is one of the largest fortifications in Europe and the largest monument in Catalonia. It was built from 1753 onward, when the nearby castle of Bellaguarda passed into French hands after the Treaty of the Pyrenees, and it owes its name to King Ferdinand VI. It can be toured with a guided visit, including its bastions, the stables capable of housing three cavalry squadrons and its spectacular underground cistern, located eight metres below the parade ground, with four tanks that together held 9,000 m³ of drinking water.
Monument
The Teatre-Museu Dalí, opened in 1974, occupies the former Teatro Principal of Figueres, a neoclassical building constructed between 1848 and 1850 by the architect Josep Roca i Bros, which was the city's great social showcase. The theatre fell into disuse at the end of the Civil War, in 1939, and a fire gutted its premises, leaving only the façade and walls standing; on those ruins the current museum was built, devised by Dalí himself and crowned by his geodesic dome. Together with the castle of Púbol and the Casa-Museu de Portlligat, it forms the Dalí Triangle of the Empordà, managed by the Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí, and it houses the most complete collection of the painter's work, as well as his tomb. It is considered the largest surrealist object in the world.
Monument
Flat on Monturiol street in Figueres (Gerona) where Salvador Dalí i Domènech was born on 11 May 1904, considered one of the greatest exponents of surrealism and the author of one of the most celebrated paintings of the 20th century, The Persistence of Memory, from 1931. Dalí spent his earliest years living in this house; today the flat is preserved as a museum space dedicated to that early period of the artist, who was born and died in the same city that saw him grow up.
Monument
Museum of art and archaeology with works by Dalí and Empordà artists, as well as holdings by Sorolla, Casas and Tàpies, and archaeological and medieval art collections. Its origins go back to 1885, when the Institut Ramon Muntaner in Figueres received on deposit a first batch of works from the Museo del Prado so that Fine Arts students could work with large pictorial pieces; to that base were later added donations such as that of the Figueres politician Josep Rubaudonadeu, between 1898 and 1902. The museum was formally created by agreement of the Figueres Town Council on 7 December 1946 and opened its doors on 4 May 1947, under the direction of the painter Ramon Reig. Since 1998 it has been managed by a consortium formed by the Town Council and the Consell Comarcal of the Alt Empordà.
Monument
The Museu del Joguet de Catalunya was opened in 1982 in the premises of the former Hotel París — the former manor house of the Baron of Terrades, from 1767 — on the Rambla de Figueres. Renovation works allowed the museum's initial space to be tripled, and it reopened on 12 December 1998. It holds more than 4,000 pieces, many from donations by figures such as Dalí and Josep Pla, along with a documentation centre on games and toys, the Brossa-Frègoli auditorium and an outdoor space called El Terrat. The collection allows for a nostalgic reading through the toys of past generations, as well as another focused on the technical advances reflected in their design. In 1999 it received the Premio Nacional de Cultura Popular, and in 2007 the Creu de Sant Jordi.
Monument
Museum born from the private collection of Pere Padrosa, with typewriters, sewing machines and other objects of the industrial revolution, located in Figueres. Padrosa began his collection in 1979 by acquiring a portable Erika typewriter from 1910, to which he went on adding sewing machines, clocks, telephones and stoves. The museum, opened on 27 June 2004, brings together more than sixteen thousand pieces from the second Industrial Revolution, of which about three thousand are on display; among the most valuable are the typewriters and sewing machines, and the Malling-Hansen writing ball stands out, considered the first typewriter in Europe.
Activity
Wine-tourism route promoted by the Regulatory Council of the DO Empordà, linking more than thirty wineries in the comarca, with tastings, vineyard visits and food pairings. The designation that gives the route its name has been regulated since 1975, when it was called Empordà-Costa Brava, a name simplified in 2006. It extends across the Alt and Baix Empordà, with about 2,020 hectares of vineyard, 423 winegrowers and 45 wineries registered with the Regulatory Council. Ten white and ten red varieties are grown, dominated by garnacha blanca, macabeo and moscatel de Alejandría, and, among reds, samsó and garnacha negra.
Activity
Figueres' weekly market, the largest in the Alt Empordà, is held every Thursday in the streets of the town centre with stalls selling clothing, crafts and local produce. Its origins go back to 21 June 1267, when King Jaume I the Conqueror made Figueres a royal town and granted it a founding charter with privileges for its residents —among them, freedom from the mals usos— and the right to hold a weekly market day and an eight-day annual fair. Today it remains an important commercial draw for the whole comarca, which comes weekly to shop there despite competition from nearby cities such as Girona and Olot.
Activity
The Fires i Festes de la Santa Creu are the main festival of Figueres (Alt Empordà) and are held for a week around 3 May, although the largest influx of visitors takes place on 1 May, the Labour Day holiday. Their origin dates back to 1419, when King Alfonso the Magnanimous established a fair that was to begin eight days before the feast of the Holy Cross, which over the centuries became the great regional fair attended by people from every village with their livestock; in 1819 a further day of festivity was added, the origin of today's Fires i Festes. Today traditional fairs of food, crafts, drawing and painting are still held, alongside activities such as the l'Embarraca't festival, the parade of giants and bigheads, and the election of the pubilla de l'Empordà.
Historical milestone
Sixty-two of the four hundred and seventy-three deputies met by night, on 1 February 1939, in the stables of the castle of Sant Ferran; it was the last session of the Cortes of the Republic on Spanish soil before the exile.
Food and drink
The Ceba de Figueres is a traditional non-hybrid onion variety, with a slightly flattened, sub-spherical bulb, purple outer skin and paler inner layers, typical of the Figueres area in the Alt Empordà. It stands out for its sweet flesh and soft texture, pinkish leaning toward lilac in color, medium size and around two hundred grams in weight per unit. It is sown between December and February, needs cold to develop well and a dry environment, and its dry-harvested crop comes in summer. It is eaten mostly raw in salads, broken apart by hand rather than cut with a knife to better preserve its mild, crunchy taste, though it is also used in sofritos. It is registered under the Marca de garantia Productes de l'Empordà, which certifies its quality and Empordan origin.