Salvador Dali Museum

Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, an industrialist couple from Ohio, began buying Dali in 1943 and knew him personally for forty years; they eventually held so much that they looked for a city to take it, and St Petersburg won in 1980. The collection runs to around 2,400 works including ninety-six oils and seven of the large masterworks - canvases over a metre and a half that took him a year or more each. The 2011 building is designed for hurricanes: walls of concrete forty-five centimetres thick, and a free-form glass structure called the Enigma with over a thousand triangular panes grafted onto it. A spiral staircase inside references the double helix, which Dali was preoccupied with.

What you actually see

• Around 2,400 works - including ninety-six oils.
• Seven large masterworks - each a year or more of work.
• A hurricane-rated building - with a thousand-pane glass Enigma.
• A helix staircase - a reference Dali would have approved.

When to go

October to May; summer is hot and stormy. Two to three hours.

Honest expectations

It is a single-artist museum - the appeal depends on the artist. Timed entry applies at busy periods. Special exhibitions cost extra. Summer afternoon storms are routine.

Nearby

The Museum of Fine Arts is up the waterfront; the Chihuly Collection is close.