Oh Girona, what a wonderful place to explore. We had a couple of extra days in Barcelona and opted to get out of the City and explore this amazing little City. It is referenced by many as a mini-Barcelona without the crowds. Its only an hour northeast by train. We jumped on one of the high speed trains from Sants Train Station in Barcelona and arrived in Girona in just under one hour……very quick and very efficient.
We had opted to stay in the Hilton Doubletree which was a short ten minute walk from the train station. The hotel was about a 15 minute walk from the old town. This walk took you through a very large park and along one of the many bicycle routes crossing the city. At the edge of the park you reach the Onyar river which abuts the old town. This is a beautiful flat walk leading to the old city.
Girona was one of the sites where HBO Game of Thrones was filmed. Its old city walls are well preserved and there was no charge to access them. The only unfortunate issue with this was there was nothing to keep the homeless form camping alongside or on top of the walls. There weren’t may to deal with…but there were several. Its amazing to see how they converted Girona into Braavos in the show. Several other episodes of the show were also filmed here.
Girona is a fascinating town with a bridge that was built by Effil before he constructed his famous tower in Paris. One of the more peculiar…and a little disturbing traditions involved a Lioness on a lamp post. The Lioness was the symbol of the City and a tradition was to kiss the Lioness’s Ass. If you did you would return to Girona. Over the years the Lioness lamp post was damaged by all the love and a brass version was mounted on a wall in the Center of the City. The tradition of kissing her butt is now discouraged……but what the heck……when in Rome:)
The City also hosts a sprawling well preserved Jewish Quarter with narrow winding streets housing shops and restaurants. The area is quite a maze and you could spend hours exploring all the sites throughout the streets, alleyways and arches. Our stay extended over a Saturday and we were treated to see a large market spring up in the Park near our hotel. This expansive market opened very early and there may have been 40 vendors selling fruits and vegetables as the day went on more vendors came and sold virtually anything and everything you could imagine. We learned that the market was set-up twice a week.
Our hotel proved to be ideally located close to three large grocery stores and close enough to the old town to enjoy a good food and our favorite cheap Spanish wine.
Girona was a very pleasant diversion from Barcelona a place we will certainly look forward to visiting again…after all I did kiss the Lioness’s shiny ass….maybe twice:} if you have the time and are in Spain…put this City on your list for a visit. You won’t be disappointed.
