Salvador and Gala Dali castle home in Pubol

About Salvador and Gala Dali castle home in Pubol

The Gala Dali Castle is in a small village called pubol which is not served by rail or bus networks however this EASY 13km circular route from Flaca Regional Renfe train station passes via the picturesque village of La Pera before arriving at Pubol village.

Salvador Dali, Catalan surrealist painter 1904-1989, bought the castle in 1969 as an almost ruin and refurbished it sympathetically to serve as a home for himself and his wife Gala Dali so that she could have a quiet and secluded place away from his hectic and eccentric life building the Dali Theatre Museum in Figueres.

What to see in the Dali Pubol Castle home

The castle dates from the 11th Century with the current structure being from late 14th century to early 15th century. After restoration by Dali, the castle comprises a ground floor garage which houses the horse drawn carriage and a Cadillac. The first floor is the main living space accessed via a staircase in the inner courtyard. Rooms on the first floor are a reception hall leading onto a lounge and piano room that connects onto two bedrooms. Gala's Bedroom has a bathroom with a magnificent fireplace. On the other side of the first floor is a kitchen, dining room and main hall with Dali's painting studio and another magnificent fireplace.

From the main hall there is an outside patio with stairs leading down to the garage and garden. The garden is a beautiful almost maze-like space with paths, statues, a pond and green pagoda. The statues are a mix of Greek style figures and Salvador Dali's surrealist elephant sculptures.

The castle was purchased by Dali as a gift for Gala who he was madly in love with. Salvador Dali had a home and studio in the nearby town of Portlligat near Cadaques.

At the Gala Dali Castle in the garden you will find the famous elephant sculptures as well as many other original Dali works.

The basement is Pubol castle which can be visited is Gala Dali's tomb mausoleum. She was interred there upon her death in 1982. Salvador Dali is interred inside his Figueres Theatre Museum.

Salvador Dali and Gala Dali relationship

Gala was born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova in 1894 in Kazan, then part of the Russian Empire.

Gala Dali was previously married to French poet Paul Eluard (in 1917) and they had one child Cecile Eluard in 1918.

Eluard and his wife first met the promising young surrealist artist at a film premiere in 1929 and there was instant and mutual attraction between Dali and Gala. Dali invited the couple to come to his family home in Cadaques, Spain for the summer.

Dali began living with Gala in 1929 but according to his own accounts they were not sexually active with each other. They had an open relationship in which she was free to have affairs, including with her former husband, Eluard, while Dali is said to have enjoyed watching her have sex with other men, or showing other men images of her naked.

Salvador Dali Married Gala secretly in a civil ceremony in 1934 and with a public marriage in 1958 in a Catholic Church.

Dala was Salvador's muse and an inspiration for a great deal of his paintings. Some of his best works featured images of Gala.

Salvador Dali stipulated that he could not access the castle without Gala's written permission.

Below is a quote from Dali's written works Confessions inconfessables (1973) about the castle and Gala.

"Everything celebrates the cult of Gala, even the round room, with its perfect echo that crowns the building as a whole and which is like a dome of this Galactic cathedral. When I walk around this house, I look at myself and I see my concentricity. I like its Moorish rigour. I needed to offer Gala a case more solemnly worthy of our love. That is why I gave her a mansion built on the remains of a 12th century castle: the old castle of Pubol in La Bisbal, where she would reign like an absolute sovereign (Marques of Dali of Pubol), right up to the point that I could visit her only by hand-written invitation from her. I limited myself to the pleasure of decorating her ceilings so that when she raised her eyes, she would always find me in her sky".

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