Where to Stay in Girona, Catalunya

What is Girona known for?

Girona keeps a walled old quarter, the Call, and the Cases de l'Onyar hanging over the water. The walls survive almost whole. Girona Cathedral sits at the head of a stair that climbs from the Basilica of Sant Feliu, and the lanes below hold the Museo de Historia de los Judíos, the Girona Museum of Art and the Cinema Museum in Girona within a few minutes of each other.

Casa Masó stands among the river houses.

What are the main landmarks in Girona?

Girona Cathedral dominates everything in Girona. Its stair climbs from the square below, and the nave behind the front is one single span, among the widest Gothic naves built anywhere. Torre Gironella marks the high corner of the walls.

The Basilica of Sant Feliu keeps its spire below the cathedral, Sant Pere de Galligants holds the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia in a Romanesque shell, and the Cases de l'Onyar line the river with Casa Masó open among them. Castell de Montjuïc watches the town from its hill.

What is the history of Girona?

Rome founded Girona as Gerunda. The main road up the coast crossed the Onyar here, and the walled rectangle the legions set on the hill above the crossing is still the outline of the Barri Vell. Gerona is the older spelling.

The Franks took the town from the Moors. Girona then held a Carolingian frontier county, and the Romanesque churches that followed, Sant Pere de Galligants among them, went up as the town spread down the slope to the water. The Call was the other Girona.

One of the largest Jewish communities in Catalonia lived in the lanes under the cathedral for four centuries, produced a school of kabbalists, and was expelled in 1492, which is the history the Museo de Historia de los Judíos keeps in those same houses. Sieges came next. Girona was besieged more often than almost any town in Catalonia, and the French assault of 1809 left the walls broken and the name Torre de Suchet on one of the towers, which is why the city still calls itself immortal.

The rampart walk above the Call still runs most of the old circuit.

Where is Girona?

Girona stands at the confluence of the Ter, the Onyar, the Galligants and the Güell. The Onyar does the dividing. The old quarter climbs a hill on one bank with Girona Cathedral and Torre Gironella on top, the newer streets spread flat on the other, and the Ter carries all four channels away toward the coast.

Girona lies northeast of Barcelona, with the foothills of the Pyrenees rising behind it and the Costa Brava a short run east.

What is the climate of Girona?

The Tramuntana sets the tone in Girona. That dry north wind comes down off the Pyrenees and scours the valley for days at a stretch, which is why winters here bite harder than on the Mediterranean coast a short way east. Summers run hot and heavy.

Autumn storms fill the Onyar, and the river has climbed into the ground floors of the Cases de l'Onyar more than once.

How do you get to Girona?

Girona sits on the high-speed line between Barcelona and the French border. AVE trains stop at the station on the west bank. The AP-7 motorway runs the same corridor for drivers, and Girona-Costa Brava Airport lies a short way south of the city at Vilobí d'Onyar, which is why a good share of arrivals are heading for the Costa Brava rather than the town.