discover - Figueres

english
DISCOVER
FIGUERES
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Introduction and Location
Museums
San Ferran Castle
La Rambla
Modernism
Neoclassicism and other currents
Public squares
Sant Pere Church
Municipal Park/Wood
Shoping
Markets & Trade fairs
Cuisine
Figueres by night
Map
Useful information
SUMARI
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Figueres is
waiting for you!
Figueres wants you! We invite you to come to Figueres, where all has been made ready to receive you
with open arms. We inhabitants of Figueres have put
in much hard work to place our city at the service of
all those visiting us. Figueres offers a life-experience
setting combining all the pleasures of the body with
enjoyment of the mind.
Everything is designed to ensure that no tourist coming to Figueres will have time to feel bored, and
to make stays among us a matter of continual celebration. Figueres lives under the magical influence of
surrealism, and is for that reason a city in which one
can experience all kinds of adventures. Any visitor
ceding to its charms will always want to come back.
If that sounds incredible to you, then come and find
out for yourself!
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Location
Figueres is situated at the north-eastern end of Catalonia. With 45.000 inhabitants, it is the largest of
the cities bordering on France and is at the hub of
a major communications network which makes it a
gateway and stopping place for travellers and tourist
entering and leaving Spain.
Figueres is the capital of Alt Empordà county and
acts as the economic-commercial, social and cultural centre of the county. The tourist vocation of the
county makes Figueres the nerve-centre of the Costa Brava, one of Catalonia´s most important tourist
zones.
You can get there directly by road or railway. Travelling by road, acces is via the A-7 motorway (exit
4, Figueres sud, if coming from Barcelona, and exit
3 if coming from France), along the N-II main road
and the N-260 from Portbou. For rail users, the station is in the centre of the city and all trains on the
Barcelona-Portbou/Cervera international line with
direct link to Barcelona, and trains for Madrid and
others parts of Spain stop here.
The high-speed train link the city quickly and conveniently with the main European cities. The centre,
where the principal attractions are concentrated, is
less than two kilometres from the TGV (high speed
train) station, which is connected by a bus service and
taxis. And beside the train station is the bus station,
which is a stopping place on international lines and a
point of arrival and departure for buses serving the
Catalan and county routes.
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Toy Museum of Catalonia
MUSEU
Dalí Theatre-Museum
The Toy Museum of Catalonia was inaugurated in 1982 in the premises
of the former Hotel París on Rambla de Figueres. The Museum´s exhibits
include over 5.000 items: animated life forms, Meccano constructions,
miniature theatre sets, cardboard animals and horses, kitchens, balls,
spinning tops, planes, cars, trains, dolls, puppets, magic tricks, games for
the blind, disguises, cut-outs, barrel organs, soldiers, robots, steam engines,
teddy bears, tricycles, scooters, etc.
Many of these items are accompanied by old photographs of children
with their toys, helping us to place them chronologically and see how children played with them. Some of the toys belong to personalities such as
Anna Maria and Salvador Dalí, Federico García Lorca, Joan Miró, Josep
Palau i Fabre, Joan Brossa, Quim Monzó, Frederic Amat, and others.
The Museum has a Documentation and Research Centre on games and
toys, a Brossa-Frègoli auditorium and an area for open-air activities: the
terrace of the Museum. A visit of the collection can be seen in many ways:
a nostalgic look back through the games our grandparents played, an
observation visit, in which we follow the scientific and technical advances
that have at any given time influenced and are still influenced by historical events and artistic movements.
Inaugurated in 1974, the Dalí Theatre-Museum was atop the remains of the former
Theatre of Figueres, and contains a broad spectrum of works covering the artistic
career of Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), from his early artistic experiences and his creations within the sphere of surrealism through to works dating from the last year of
his life.
Some of the most outstanding works on exhibition there are Port Alguer ( 1924), The
Spectrum of Sex Appeal (1932), Soft Self-Portrait with Fried Bacon (1941), Poetry
from America, the Cosmic Athletes (1943), Galarina (1944-1945), The Bread Basket
(1945), Atomic Leda (1949) and Galatea of the Spheres (1952).
We might also note the sets of work the artist created expressly for the TheatreMuseum, such as the Mae West room, the Palace of the Wind room, Monument to
Francesc Pujols and Rainy Cadillac.
The Dalí Theatre-Museum has to be seen as a whole, as the great work of Salvador
Dalí, since it was conceived of and designed by the artist in order to offer visitors
a genuine experience that would take them into his entrancing and unique world.
Dalí Theatre-Museum
Plaça Gala i Salvador Dalí, 5
17600 Figueres
Tel: 972 677 509 · Fax: 972 501 666
[email protected]
www.salvador-dali.org
Toy Museum of Catalonia
Hotel París · c. de Sant Pere, 1
17600 Figueres
Tel: 972 504 585 · Fax: 972 676 428
[email protected]
www.mjc.cat
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museus
Museum of the Empordà
The Museum of the Empordà houses one of the county´s foremost art collections. Created in 1946, the history of its collections goes back to the 19th century,
on the basis of the loans from the Prado Museum and donations and legacies
from illustrious Empordà personalities. The present building was constructed
in 1971 and planned as a museum of archaeology, history and art. Today, the
Museum offers the public a historical reading of its collections and an opening
up to contemporary art.
The permanent collection shows the collections of archaeology (funerary objects, Iberian, Attic and Italic pottery), mediaeval sculpture (Monastery of Sant
Pere de Rodes), baroque painting (loans from the Prado Museum: Ribera, Mengs,
Mignard), painting and sculpture of the 19th and 20th centuries (Sorolla, Casas,
Mir, Monell, Gargallo, Casanovas, Cuixart, Ponç, Sunyer, Tàpies) and Empordà
art ( Blanquet, Dalí, Reig, Vallès, Santos Torroella).
Sant Ferran Castle
Rambla, 2 · 17600 Figueres
Tel.: 972 502 305 · Fax: 972 510 765
[email protected]
www.museuemporda.org
Alongside this, the Museum of the Empordà is a multidisciplinary institution
which organises temporary exhibitions and activities directed at conservation
and dissemination of the local and county cultural heritage, with special attention to experimentation and to reflection on contemporany artistic creation.
Technology Museum
of l'Empordà
Situated atop a hill, at the end of Pujada del Castell, this is a large military
fortification built in the 18th century under the orders of various military
engineers, notable among whom were Pere M. Cermeño and Joan M. Cermeño. It occupies a surface area of 32 hectares within a perimeter running
3,120 metres, while the tanks under the parade ground can hold 40 million
litres of water. Sant Ferran Castle, which could hold 6.000 men, is a first-rate
heritage feature, the largest monument in Catalonia and the largest ramparted fortress in 18th century Europe. In the month of July 1997 it was opened
up to the public on a regular basis with a guided visit service to show the
fortress features. Its enormous size, sophisticated building techniques within
the sphere of the period´s military engineering skills and its excellent state of
preservation make a visit to Sant Ferran Castle a magnificent experience.
Thirty years ago, Pere Padrosa purchased the first typewriter in his collection.
One Sunday morning, he wrote the first sentence in the making of the museum.
Three decades later, the Technology Museum of l’Empordà has become a reality. It holds part of the objects that have been acquired during this time and
boasts a large collection.
Visitors to the museum can admire the beauty of the exhibits on show. Collectors may contemplate pieces that combined their practical purposes with
artistic expression. Historians may study a time in which science and technology
became the driving force behind human advancement.
c. dels Fossos, 12 · 17600 Figueres
Tel.: 972 508 820
[email protected]
www.mte.cat
Pujada del Castell, s/n
Tel: 972 506 094 · Fax: 972 674 499
[email protected]
www.lesfortalesescatalanes.info
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Modernism
Modernism reached the city with the architect Josep Azemar i Pont, author of some
of the city´s most notable buildings. Outstanding among them are:
Casa Cusí. ( Rambla, 20). The Cusís were a family of Figueres industrialists at the
end of the nineteenth century who accumulated one of the city´s largest fortunes
through electricity production and cement manufacturing. The house they had built
to live in is of modernist style following a plan by the architect Josep-Azemar i Pont
and dates from 1894, reproducing the features of a neo-Gothic stately home. It was
built using “noble” materials such as stone and forged iron combined with other more
popular ones such as glazed tiles.
Casa Puig-Soler. (Rambla, 27). Modernist house built in 1901 by the architect Josep
Azemar i Pont. It is a building of flats on a corner topped by a tower at its axis. The
architect brought a very personal and stylised approach to the historicist-rooted features that characterise the building.
Casa Salleras. ( Rambla, 16). Modernist-style building to the north of La Rambla. It
was designed by the architect Josep Azemar i Pont as a residence in 1904. It has notable decorative finishes made with mosaic and features of the balcony and interiors.
La Rambla
La Rambla is the city´s central avenue, its most symbolic area, at the heart of
the shopping zone and forming the axis which links the old quarter with the zone
that expanded with the city in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its origins go back to
1828, when it was decided to cover over the bed of Galligans Streams for health
reasons. Once the stream had been covered the resulting space was converted by
popular wish into a public promenade. Between the end of the 19th century and
the Spanish Civil War this was the zone in which the city´s finest collection of
buildings were constructed, which in combination with those that already existed
created in a single setting an area in which the baroque, neoclassical, eclectic,
modernist, Noucentista and rationalist styles could be seen alongside each other.
Development of La Rambla reached its high point in the reform planned by the
architect Ricard Giralt i Cassadesús in 1917, when the block of houses at the top
part was demolished and replaced by a monument of Noucentista inspiration
by the sculptor Enric Casanoves, dedicated to one of the city´s leading figures,
Narcís Monturiol, inventor of the first submarine, the Ictineu.
>>Modernism
Neoclassicism and
other currents
Casa Mas Roger. (Monturiol 10/ Plaça Palmera). Aside from its achitecture
value, the building is know for having been the second home of Salvador
Dalí. The Mas Roger house was built by Josep Azemar i Pont in 1910 and is
notable for its three facades and well-balanced combination of wood, iron,
ceramic tiles and stone.
Former Hotel París. (Sant Pere, 1). Baroque building
planned in 1767 by Pere M.Cermeño, the same engineer behind the construction of Sant Ferran Castle.
Casa Caselles. (Rambla, 22). A house built in 1930 to a
project by the architect Joan Gumà Cuevas. The building could be classified as lying within a beaux arts
eclecticism characteristic of the antimodernist reaction
of he period around teh 1929 Great Exhibition in Barcelona.
Former Abbatoir.(Plaça de l´Escorxador). The architect Josep Azemar i Pont
built the present building form new in 1902, in the modernist style.
Municipal Theatre El Jardí. (Plaça Josep Pla, 2).
Noucentista building with a considerable historicist
charge with predominance of the Ionic order, built in
1914 to a plan by the architect Llorenç Ros i costa.
Casino Menestral Figuerenc
Antic Escorxador
Former Casa Pagès. (Nou, 48). The present headquarters of the County Council, this is a stately building from 1929 planned by the architect Francesc
Tarragó. It is notable for its considerable dimensions
and the out-of-period classicism of its interior with the
ornamental wealth and luxury.
Casa de Romà. (Peralada, 48). This building dates
from the first half of the 19th century, though its author is unknown. It is a neoclassical stately home with
rear garden which up till the civil war had been the
home of a family of Empordà landowners.
Teatre Municipal El Jardí
Casino Menestral. (Ample, 17). Eclectic in style, this
building was planned in 1904, probably by the architect Josep Bori, to become the headquarters of the Societat Casino Menestral de Figuerenc, founded in 1856
in order to promote friendly relations between the
middle-class residents and disseminate Enlightenment
ideas among its associates.
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Plaça de l’Ajuntament
Plaça de les patates
Public Squares
Plaça de l’Ajuntament. In this central spot of
the city there is the city council building from
around the year 1757, when it was built following
a design by the military engineer of Sant Ferran
Castle, Joan M. Cermeño. From an architectural
point of view we might note particularly the porches, altered in the first half of the 19th century
when the medieval square was rebuilt. In a severe
neoclassical style, the outline is by the Figueres
architect and master of fortifications Rafael
Cantró, who followed the architectural reference of the porched zones of Sant Ferran Castle. In
the square, out in the open air, the market was
set up for many years, with stalls for selling agriculturual products and other products of local
toolmakers. The present City Hall building dates
from a 1929 plan by the architext Ricard Giralt i
Casadesús, and was not to be completed finally
until the 1940s, once the Civil War had ended.
PUBLIC
SQUARES
Plaça de les patates. Former plaça del gra vella.
The initial project dates from the year 1825, and
was in response to the grain sellers’ need for mor
space, once the spaces in the Plaça de l’Ajuntament
could no longer be expanded due to addition of the
new porches. In 1825 the architect Rafael Cantró
presented the Pouet planning project, which
addressed only part of the urbanisation of the new
square, altering the alignement and creating two
new porches forming an angle, in the same style as
those in the Paça de l’Ajuntament.
Plaça Catalunya
Plaça del gra. The new grain square or “covered
square” is the former market. It is in the centre of
Figueres and was constructed in 1826 as a public
area for a market. In 1887 Puig i Saguer created
the present structure with a roof of iron, wood
and tiles, in one of the city’s most original and representative constructions, under the auspices of
the Vilallongas, Figueres iron manufacturers . It is
a simple yet highly harmonious structure forming
a singular area. Its 36 iron columns support a covered area devoted to a colourful and lively food
market on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Plaça Dr. Ernest Vila and Plaça Catalunya.
The square is in the historic centre right where the
former Figueres hospital, built in the 17th century
and destroyed in Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
aerial bombing, used to stand. The way it is laid
out, combining water and areas laid to garden as
ornamental features, is a clear example of 1960s
town planning, when the city’s urban expansion
was starting. The illuminated fountain, the work
of the engineer Buïgas, was inaugurated in 1965.
Next to Plaça de la Font Lluminosa, on the east
side, we find Plaça de Catalunya. It was inaugurated in 1994, and a weekly food market takes place
on its grounds on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, as well as in Plaça del Gra. The appearance
of Plaça Catalunya was radically changed in 2011
with the inauguration of the remodelling work
which resulted in the installation of an innovative
photovoltaic cover designed by the architect Rafael Cáceres. This new structure has rapidly become a new city icon and a must-see for any visitor.
Plaça Dr. Ernest Vila
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Sant Pere
Municipal Park
The wooded park is the real oxygenator of the city, its
44.200 square metres forming the city’s largest green
zone. It dates from a 1917 project by Ricard Giralt i
Casadesús, to which was added in 1926 the entrance
steps to a design by the young Pelai Martínez Paricio.
The project promoters, Josep Pitxot, a well-known forestry expert, Joaquim Cusí, owner of the Cusí laboratories, and the major at time, Marià Pujulà, felt that
there was a need to ensure that the expanding city had
a leisure area. The park was laid in uncultivated land
the City Hall owned beside what is now Passeig Nou.
The work actually started in 1920, after many political upsets, with a tree planting in which the citizens
played a highly active role.
Figueres parish church (Plaça de Sant Pere, 18). Probably raised on the site
of a former early Christian church, the oldest parts still preserved date from
the 10th-11th century in part of wall on the north side with an embrasure at
the foot of the belltower. Towards the end of the 14th century King Peter
the Ceremonious ordered the consturction of a new church in Figueres, and
a single -nave Gothic-style church was raised over the Romanesque building,
with no cross vault or apse aisle. This is retained to this day in its original
form up to where the apse began. In the 18th century a cross vault and polygonal apse were added to it, replacing the former Gothic sanctuary. At the
end of the 19 th century, in 1895, the dome was rebuilt following a plan by
the architect Azemar i Pont. At the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936
the church sustained serious damage when it was set on fire and some of
its finest features knocked down. Between 1941 and 1948, however, it was
rebuilt with stone blocks, the cross vault crowned with an octogonal cupola,
following the Gothic style of the former nave and thus achieving a unified,
sober and imposing whole.
MUNICIPAL
PARK
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comerc
Markets
The weekly open-air markets are the oldest ways of exchanging
products and, in the case of fruit and vegetables, permit direct
contact between producer and buyer. This type of commerce
has lost none of its relevance or charm, and plays a recognised
role in social relations. The Figueres clothes market is one of the
largest in the Girona counties and attracts many shoppers from
the other side of the Pyrenees.
markets &
trade fairs
Shopping
Figueres has been and is a city with a commercial vocation. It was the
first city in Girona province to have a pedestrian shopping zone in the
city centre. The historical centre, known as the Rovell de l’Ou, is today
a great open-air shopping zone which can offer a notable and varied
range of shops selling food, textiles and clothes and household articles.
The city’s thousand shops make up a commercial range which attracts
shoppers form Alt Empordà county, the other Girona counties and the
south of France. This is high-quality commerce based on convenience
and family service, though not excluding more modern and innovative
forms of organisation such as franchises. In Figueres you can shop as
you stroll and stroll as you shop.
Trade fairs
Figueres is a city with a great tradition of trade-fair organisation. Its status as capital of a region of great economic
dynamism such as the Alt Empordà has made it a place
for disseminatino of the latest trends and novelties, making
it a point of reference for exhibitors and clients of fairs
on the most diverse themes. The main trade foirs which
take place in the city are: Firagri, Fair of Santa Creu, Alt
Empordà Wine exhibition, Sant Josep-Fira del Bunyol de
l’Empordà Fair, Trade Fair-Market, Toy Festival Intergalactic Meeting of Collectors’ Toys, Cut-price Trade Fair
and Saint George’s Day.
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Figueres,
gastronomic city
“In Figueres the dinner table awaited us laid and set out (...)
The table overflowed with food, meet dishes of all sorts,
boiled fish and fried fish (...) Incomparable fruits, flaming
wine...” Hans Christian Andersen Journey around Spain
(1862).
Figueres cuisine combines the most authentic alt Empordà
gastronomic tradition (from platillos of grandma’s meat to
the Costa Brava fish dishes), with a subtle and daring culinary conception of its own that has brought the city an
example of top-class contemporary restauranteering, lauded by the region’s most prestigious authors. This is a cuisine closely tied in with the quality of the raw materials that
come from kitchen gardens, unirrigated cultivation, the sea
and the mountains, and the use of products combined with
traditional good sense or with a contradictory and lavish
imagination, inherent to the county and the people who
have and do experience it intensely.
Figueres by night
The list of restarants we present can offer you the most exquisite dishes made in a refined setting, traditional cooking
handed down by grandmothers in a setting which reminds
us of the fair and market days of years back, that creative
cooking which each day invents new and surprising dishes,
quality daily food at reasonable and competitive prices
along with fast food for those with little time to sit down to
eat but want instead to devote their time to visiting the city.
Going out around Figueres at night is a good way to round
off the day having a good time listening to music and enjoying a good atmosphere in the city’s night bars. Dotted
around the city, but most particulary in Plaça del sol and
Recinte Firal, where you will find a wide range of nightspots for all kinds of people and tastes, from those seeking
a place for clam conversation with friends to those who
prefer a more lively atmosphere.
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Estació TAV
TREN
TAV/TGV
Distances of Figueres from others
cities (Km):
BUS
AJUNTAMENT
AYUNTAMIENTO
TOWN HALL
MAIRIE
RATHAUS
OFICINA DE TURISME
OFICINA DE TURISMO
TOURIST OFFICE
OFFICE DU TOURISME
FREMDENVERKERHRSAMT
CONSELL
COMARCAL
ALT EMPORDÀ
36 Girona
50 Girona-Costa Brava
airport
65 Perpignan
136 Barcelona
160 Barcelona airport
234 Tarragona
253 Tolouse
BIBLIOTECA
LIBRARIE
BIBLIOTHÈQUE
BIBLIOTHEK
CORREUS I TELÈGRAFS
CORREOS Y TELÉGRAFOS
POST OFFICE
POSTE
POSTAMT
JUTJATS
JUZGADO
LAW COURTS (LOCAL)
P. DE JUSTICE (REGIONAL)
AMTSGERICHT
LAVABOS PÚBLICS
LAVABOS PÚBLICOS
PUBLIC TOILETS
PARKING
Alt Empordà
TREN
HOSPITAL
HÔPITAL
KRANKENHAUS
CASTELL
SANT FERRAN
MUSEU DALÍ
MUSEO DALÍ
DALI’S MUSEUM
MUSÉE DALI
DALI-MUSEUM
ESTACIÓ FERROCARRIL
ESTACIÓN FERROCARRIL
GARE
RAILWAY STATION
BAHNHOF
ESTACIÓ TAV / TGV
ESTACIÓN DEL AVE
GARE TAV / TGV
RAILWAY HIGH-SPEED TRAIN
BAHNHOF TAV
GUÀRDIA URBANA
GUARDIA URBANA
LOCAL POLICE
COM. DE POLICE LOCAL
ORTSPOLIZEI
TORRE GALATEA
POLICIA
MOSSOS
D’ESQUADRA
POLICIA NACIONAL
POLICÍA NACIONAL
POLICE STATION
COM. DE POLICE
POLIZEIDIENSTSTELLE
BOMBERS
BOMBEROS
POMPIERS
FIRE BRIGADE
FEUERWEHR
MUSEU DEL JOGUET
MUSEUO DEL JUGUETE
TOY MUSEUM
MUSÉE DES JOUETS
SPIELZEUGMUSEUM
MUSEU DE L’EMPORDÀ
MUSEO DEL AMPURDÁN
EMPORDÀ MUSEUM
MUSÉE DE L’EMPORDÀ
EMPORDÀ MUSEUM
MUSEU DE LA TÈNICA
MUSEO DE LA TÉCNICA
TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM OF L'EMPORDÀ
MUSÉE DE LA TÈCNICA DE L'EMPORDÀ
TECHNISCHES MUSEUM VON L’EMPORDÀ
GASOLINERA
PETROL STATION
POSTE D’ESSENCE
TANKSTELLE
MERCAT
MERCADO
MARCHE
MARKET
MARKT
PISCINA
PISCINE
SWIMMING POOL
SCHWIMMBAD
TEATRE
TEATRO
THEATRE
THEATER
ESPORTS
ZONA DE VIANANTS
ZONA PEATONAL
PEDESTRIAN ZONE
RUE PIÉTONNIÈRE
FUßGÄNGER-ZONE
Lleida
Marseille
Valencia
Madrid
Milan
Paris
Roma
Amsterdam
Useful addresses and
telephone numbers:
Escola d’Hostaleria
CREU ROJA
CRUZ ROJA
RED CROSS
CROIX-ROUGE
ROTE KREUZ
292
373
483
735
849
911
1207
1426
RENFE railway station
Plaça de l’Estació
Telf: 902 240 202 · 902 320 320
Web: www.renfe.es
Bus station
Plaça de l’Estació, 7
Telf: 972 67 33 54
Escola d’Hostaleria
Alt Empordà
ESTACIÓ BUS
ESTACIÓN AUTOBUS
GARE ROUTIÈRE
BUS STATION
OMNIBUSBAHNHOF
LLOGUER DE COTXES
ALQUILER DE COCHES
RENT A CAR
LOCATION DE VOITURES
AUTOVERMIETUNG
ESCOLA D’HOSTALERIA
CAMÍ DE SANT JAUME
CAMINO DE SANTIAGO ESCUELA DE HOSTELERÍA
ROAD TO SANTIAGO
ROUTE DE SAINT-JACQUES
JAKOBSWEG
TGV (high-speed train)
Telf: 902 320 320
Web: www.tgv-europe.es · www.renfe.es
Photo: Pep Iglesias
pag. 6-7 :Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí and Museu del Joguet de Catalunya.
pag. 8: Museu de l’Empordà and Museu de la Tècnica de
l’Empordà.
pág. 9: Fundació Les Fortaleses Catalanes.
22 23
ERESFIGUERES
Oficina de turisme de Figueres
Plaça del Sol, s/n
Tel. 00 34 972 503 155 / 671 654 950
[email protected]
www.visitfigueres.cat
Edita: Oficina de Turisme
Ajuntament de Figueres
Disseny: Agnès Figueres
Impressió: Gràfiques Trayter
Fotocomposició: Roger