The Rough Guide to Barcelona 8 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

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La Glorieta del Castell , Pl. del Castell 2 (T977 340 826; closed Sun dinner). For
fancier, contemporary cuisine – main courses €20 to €30, set menus at €30 and
€50 – there’s Restaurant Joan Urgellès, c/Aleus 7 (T977 342 178), and the
renowned GaudíR de Diego, on the top floor of the Gaudí Centre ( T977 127 702;
closed Sun, & Mon dinner), the latter considered the best in town and especially
good for fish and rice.
Girona
The ancient walled city of GIRONA stands on a fortress-like hill, high above
the Riu Onyar. It’s been fought over in almost every century since it was the
Roman fortress of Gerunda on the Via Augusta and perhaps more than any
other place in Catalunya it retains the distinct flavour of its erstwhile inhabit-
ants. Following the Moorish conquest of Spain, Girona was an Arab town for
over two hundred years, a fact apparent in the maze of narrow streets in the
centre, and there was also a continuous Jewish presence here for six hundred
years. By the eighteenth century, Girona had been besieged on 21 occasions,
and in the nineteenth century it earned itself the nickname “Immortal” by
surviving five attacks, of which the longest was a seven-month assault by the
French in 1809. Not surprisingly, all this attention has bequeathed the city a
hotchpotch of architectural styles, yet the overall impression for the visitor is of
an overwhelmingly beautiful medieval city. Its attraction is heightened by its
setting, with the old and new towns divided by the river, which is crisscrossed
by footbridges, with pastel-coloured houses reflected in the waters below.
The City
Although the bulk of modern Girona lies on the west side of the Riu Onyar,
most visitors spend nearly all their time in the old city, over the river.This thin
wedge of land contains all the sights and monuments, and it takes only half an
hour or so to walk from end to end. It’s worth noting that most of the museums
and sights are closed on Mondays, though the city is emphatically still worth
a visit if that’s the only day you can manage.
Centrepiece of the old city is the Catedral (Tues–Fri 10am–8pm, Nov–
March 10am–7pm, Sat 10am–4.30pm, Sun 10am–2pm; €5, cloister and
treasury free Sun; W ), a mighty Gothic structure
approached by a magnificent flight of seventeenth-century Baroque steps.
Inside, there are no aisles, just one tremendous Gothic nave vault with a span
of 22m, the largest in the world. This emphasis on width and height is a
feature of Catalan-Gothic, with its “hall churches”, of which, unsurprisingly,
Girona’s is the ultimate example. The displayed treasures of the cathedral
include the famous eleventh-century Creation Tapestry – the best piece of
Romanesque textile in existence. But it’s the exquisite Romanesque cloisters
(1180–1210) that make the strongest impression, boasting minutely carved
figures and scenes on double columns.
Through the twin-towered Portal de Sobreportas, below the cathedral, are
Girona’s so-called Banys Arabs (April–Sept Mon–Sat 10am–7pm, Sun
10am–2pm; Oct–March daily 10am–2pm; €1.80; T972 21 3 262, W www
), probably designed by Moorish craftsmen in the thirteenth
century, a couple of hundred years after the Moors’ occupation of Girona had
OUT OF THE CITY
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Girona