I’d read so many wonderful things about Girona on blogs like Adventurous Kate and Nomadic Matt that I just had to go and visit.
Girona is only half an hour by car from Figueres, where we visited the Dalí Museum, so we decided to kill two birds with one stone. After having admired the works of Dalí, we drove further south to Girona.
Girona, a charming city
It took us a while to find a parking spot – this place is popular! – but once we did, we quickly crossed the bridge into the old city center.
While doing so we spotted these men. They were pulling loose the algae and other green stuff that were omnipresent there in the Onyar river. Quite the job!
We headed towards the tourism office on the Rambla de la Llibertat, a pedestrian shopping street, to get a map and then wandered of into the many little alleys that make Girona’s old center so charming.
Most of these alleys can be found in the Jewish quarter, which is one of the best preserved in the world.
The first site we came across was the cathedral, a beautiful building but not easy to capture on photo as it’s surrounded by buildings and not on a large open square, as you often see in Europe.
The cathedral was built between the 12th and the 18th century and has the second widest Gothic nave in the world, after the St. Peter’s Basilica.
From there we walked to the Jardins de la Francesa.
I wanted to see the gardens, but especially wanted to go there because from the gardens you could get on the old city walls. These walls are still for a large part intact and you can walk all around the north of the old city center on them.
They offered some great views, but I have to admit that I didn’t always feel as confident on there. I might have faced my fear of heights in Quebec, I still haven’t conquered it completely. That’s why most of the photos below were taken by Siemen as I didn’t dare to go close to the edge of the wall (although there was no way I could fall off).
At one point there was a tower you could climb up to reach an even higher viewing point. As I’d promised myself that I’d never just let my fear of heights stop me from doing something, I bravely started climbing. After just a few steps, though, I suddenly got really dizzy and nauseous. I was physically unwell with fear and so I didn’t climb this tower, but at least I tried.
Luckily the situation was also a bit funny. When I came down I heard a woman say to her husband, in Dutch: “Look, that girl doesn’t dare to go up either”. She was surprised when I told her in Dutch that, indeed, I didn’t. What are the odds of just stumbling upon another Flemish person who has a fear of heights as well?
I’m really grateful that Siemen helped me out with the shots and I actually loved them so much that I couldn’t choose. That’s why I’m giving you way too many views on Girona:
Did you make it until here? Cool! Thanks for sticking around. Hope you enjoyed those views as much as I did though.
When we got back down we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around and having a delicious paella. We ended our short trip to Girona with a walk along the water and these colorful houses.
Practical information
As we’ve spent some time looking for parking, I just wanted to give some tips for those of you planning to visit Girona by car. There are a bunch of free parking spots along the C. de Bonstruc de Porta and the Pg. de la Devesa. There’s also a large free car park at the Rot. de Pont de Pedret (roundabout).
All these spots were full when we were there though, and so we crossed the river Ter to find some stores and a big parking lot immediately to our left. From there it’s only a five-minute walk into the old town.
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