Le Passage Dali

We decided to have a day out today so took the €1 train to Perpignan (such good value for a 45 minute journey.) We went to see Philomena, the story of an elderly lady's attempt to find her illegitimate son, taken away from her for adoption by nuns. It is a sad tale but the pace of the unfolding story and the performances of Judi Dench and Steve Cooogan make it well worth watching. To reach the city centre we had to go under the station's Passage Dali. I was impressed by the Daliesque murals that lined the walls. The station has a close association with the Spanish surrealist artist. Following a visit in 1963, Salvador Dalí declared the city's railway station the centre of the Universe, saying that he always got his best ideas sitting in the waiting room. He followed that up some years later by declaring that the Iberian Peninsula rotated precisely at Perpignan station 132 million years ago – an event the artist invoked in his 1983 painting Topological Abduction of Europe – Homage to René Thom. Above the station is a monument in Dali's honour, and across the surface of one of the main platforms is painted, in big letters, "Perpignan centre du monde" (French for "Perpignan centre of the world").