Condoms. Thousands of them. Hanging from the ceiling. I wasn’t quite sure what any of it meant, to be honest. A comment on the denial of the will of fertility? It’s anybody’s guess. When it comes to Salvador Dali, not a lot of things make sense.

We were standing in the main hall of the Salvador Dali museum in the artist’s hometown of Figueres, Spain. It is a city of bustling culture vultures, of artistic self-confidence, and a very pleasant place to spend time.

The building itself is a red, gold-spotted, egg-adorned, oddity entirely fitting of the works held within. A palace of sorts, it is built on the site of an old theatre, and retains much of its theatricality. Staring at it, I tried to work out if: 1. That Spanish waiter with the odd look had slipped something in my drink or 2. I had been mysteriously transported into a cartoon world.

Turned out it was neither, and that the people of Figueres had actually let their famous son build a building more complexing than how Jade Goody has earned a fortune (answers on a postcard for that one, I really do want to know how she has done it).

He built it so people could have a doorway into his creative space, to understand how his mind works. If you have seen pictures of Dali, this may scare you. The exquisitely moustachioed man resembles a cartoon villain, but looks entirely appropriate for the surrealist vision he pursued.

Clocks, famously, dominate Dali’s pictures. Melting over a table, or floating in a surrealist sky, they are an enduring presence.

And an enjoyable one. Museums are never my favourite place to visit, I see them as time suspended rather than time re-born and living in front of you. And there is something eerie about time suspended. But this place shimmers with energy, you can feel the creativity bursting out of the paintings and sculptures. You can’t help but smile, even if you don’t appreciate the art (and I am to art what Jeremy Clarkson is to political correctness).

An experience well worth investing your time in, then. Even if it is just to laugh along in Dali’s cartoon world. Still not sure about the condoms, though.