Girona: Travelling To Catalonia

Girona in the northern province of Catalonia is often overlooked by tourists, but its beauty is undeniable. After two weeks in Andalusia in the south, I was excited to arrive in a new area of Spain and discover the differences between architecture, food and people.

I was met at the train station by Sarah, a young woman who I have been chatting with for close to two years on my language exchange app HelloTalk. Sarah is among a group of people who have collectively convinced me to add Spain to my itinerary, which originally only consisted of Latin America. Therefore after months of planning and preparation, the meeting with her at the station was surreal, exciting and full of hugs and laughter.

Sarah is a born and bred Gironian and is extremely proud of her region of Catalonia, so she was armed with a fully planned itinerary and boundless enthusiasm to show me her hometown.

Game of Thrones scenes filmed in Girona

Who needs a paid walking tour when you have a local friend who knows all the stories of the region? Sarah and her friend Paula took me around the old historic sector of Girona, where in fact many scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed, including a chase scene with Arya, the theatre play she attends and, most notably, the cathedral steps where Queen Cersei is humiliated and forced to complete a naked walk of shame through the town. There are lines of people to pay for entry into Sevilla’s Real Alcazar to see the fictional land of Dorne from the series, however on this dreary rainy day, it was wonderful to be in a less-known and touristy place. There were still tourist trains driving around and tourists doing their snaps on the cathedral steps – these days tourists have infiltrated everywhere, myself included! I must admit, I was tempted to stand on the top of those steps and yell “SHAME, SHAME!”

Legends of Girona

More than revelling in the beauty of the architecture, if you really want to get to know a city, learn its legends and stories. Sarah was full of them. The first legend was about the Witch of the Cathedral, who they say used to trouble parishioners with her insults about religion and threw stones at the cathedral until she was turned to a stone gargoyle attached to the church facing the ground, damned to hell for eternity. She is the only human gargoyle on the cathedral and looks very sad as water pours from her face in the rain.

Characters of a better standing are immortalised by facing the heavens, for example the butler, who, to play a trick on her guests, mixed sugar into her sausage mix. However the guests unexpectedly loved the dish, and sweet sausages are now a famous dish in the region.

Close to Sarah’s apartment is another unmissable icon with a legend – the Lioness’s bottom. It is said that soldiers leaving Girona who wanted to return alive would kiss the bottom of the statue before leaving. So the saying goes that any visitor to Girona who likes the city enough to return, can’t leave without partaking in the tradition. Needless to say, my lips got busy that day!

Finally was the legend of the crocodile woman, who was a nun who was locked in a dundgeon on the river. She was a beautiful woman but very holy and the other nuns in the convent locked her up due to jealousy. She remained in the dungeon for weeks as it began to fill with water after heavy rain. Eventually her body morphed into that of a crocodile, but since she was a saint, she also grew butterfly wings. It is said that those with a good heart see her swimming in the river on a full moon night.

The following day, I was taken to the charming surrounding small towns around Girona, including Peratallada and Pals. We finished the day overlooking the Mediterranean’s Costa Brava, where the rich of Catalonia spend their summer vacations.

If you come to Spain and decide to drop into Barcelona and the province of Catalonia, don’t miss out on visiting Girona. There are three speed options of trains ranging from 36 minutes to 2 hours depending on your budget and timetable. Girona has all the beauty, food, history and nature of anything in the south. You won’t regret coming here.

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