Catalonia, Valencia, and the Costa Blanca
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Catalonia, Valencia, and the Costa Blanca - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
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1. Catedral de Girona
At the heart of the Barri Vell, the cathedral looms above 90 steps and is famous for its nave—at 75 feet, the widest in the world and the epitome of the spatial ideal of Catalan Gothic architects. Since Charlemagne founded the original church in the 8th century, it has been through many fires and renovations. Take in the rococo-era facade, "eloquent as organ music" and impressive flight of 17th-century stairs, which rises from its own plaça. Inside, three smaller naves were compressed into one gigantic hall by the famed architect Guillermo Bofill in 1416. The change was typical of Catalan Gothic "hall" churches, and it was done to facilitate preaching to crowds. Note the famous silver canopy, or baldaquí (baldachin). The oldest part of the cathedral is the 11th-century Romanesque Torre de Carlemany (Charlemagne Tower). The cathedral's exquisite 12th-century cloister has an obvious affinity with the cloisters in the Roussillon area of France. Inside the Treasury there's a variety of precious objects. They include a 10th-century copy of Beatus's manuscript Commentary on the Apocalypse (illuminated in the dramatically primitive Mozarabic style), the Bible of Emperor Charles V, and the celebrated Tapís de la Creació (Tapestry of the Creation), considered by most experts to be the finest tapestry surviving from the Romanesque era.
Pl. de la Catedral s/n, Girona, Catalonia, 17004, Spain972-427189Sight Details
Rate Includes: €7.50 (includes Basilica de Sant Feliu) -
2. El Call
Girona is especially noted for its 12th-century Jewish Quarter, El Call, which branches off Carrer de la Força, south of the Plaça Catedral. The quarter is a network of lanes that crisscross above one another, and houses built atop each other in disorderly fashion along narrow stone medieval streets. The earliest presence of Jews in Girona is uncertain, but the first historical mention dates from 982. This once-prosperous community—one of the most flourishing in Europe during the Middle Ages—was, at its height, a leading center of Kabbalistic learning.
Girona, Catalonia, 17004, Spain -
3. Museu d'Història dels Jueus
Housed in a former synagogue, this museum examines the history, daily life, and artistic and cultural traditions of Catalonia's Jewish communities in medieval times, with a focus on Girona. A highlight is the 21 stone tablets, one of the finest collections in the world of medieval Jewish funerary slabs. These came from the old Jewish cemetery of Montjuïc, revealed when the railroad between Barcelona and France was laid out in the 19th century. The museum organizes conferences, exhibitions, and seminars. It also contains the Institut d'Estudis Nahmànides, with an extensive library of Judaica.
Carrer de la Força 8, Girona, Catalonia, 17004, Spain972-216761Sight Details
Rate Includes: €4 -
4. Banys Arabs
The Banys Arabs were actually built by Morisco craftsmen (workers of Moorish descent) in the late 12th century, long after Girona's Islamic occupation (714–797) had ended. Following the old Roman model that had disappeared in the West, the custom of bathing publicly may have been brought back from the Holy Land with the Crusaders. These baths are sectioned off into three rooms in descending order: a frigidarium, or cold bath, a square room with a central octagonal pool and a skylight with cupola held up by two stories of eight fine columns; a tepidarium, or warm bath; and a caldarium, or steam room, beneath which is a chamber where a fire was kept burning. Here the inhabitants of old Girona came to relax, exchange gossip, or do business.
Carrer Ferran el Catòlic s/n, Girona, Catalonia, 17004, Spain972-190969Sight Details
Rate Includes: €3 -
5. Basílica de Sant Feliu
One of Girona's most beloved churches and its first cathedral until the 10th century, Sant Feliu was repeatedly rebuilt and altered over four centuries and stands today as an amalgam of Romanesque columns, a Gothic nave, and a baroque facade. The vast bulk of this structure is landmarked by one of Girona's most distinctive belfries, topped by eight pinnacles. The basilica was founded over the tomb of St. Felix of Africa, a martyr under the Roman emperor Diocletian.
Pujada de Sant Feliu 29, Girona, Catalonia, 17004, Spain972-201407Sight Details
Rate Includes: €7.50 (includes Girona Cathedral) -
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6. Monestir de Sant Pere de Galligants
The church of St. Peter, across the Galligants River, was finished in 1131, and is notable for its octagonal Romanesque belfry and the finely detailed capitals atop the columns in the cloister. It now houses the Museu Arqueològic (Museum of Archaeology), which documents the region's history since Paleolithic times and includes some artifacts from Roman times.
Carrer de Santa Llúcia 8, Girona, Catalonia, 17007, Spain972-202632Sight Details
Rate Includes: €6, Closed Mon. -
7. Museu d'Art
The Episcopal Palace near the cathedral contains the wide-ranging collections of Girona's main art museum. On display is everything from superb Romanesque majestats (carved wood figures of Christ) to reliquaries from Sant Pere de Rodes, illuminated 12th-century manuscripts, and works of the 20th-century Olot school of landscape painting.
Pujada de la Catedral 12, Girona, Catalonia, 17004, Spain972-203834Sight Details
Rate Includes: €6, Closed Mon. -
8. Museu d'Història de Girona
From pre-Roman objects to paintings and drawings from the notorious siege at the hands of Napoleonic troops, to the early municipal lighting system and the medieval printing press, artifacts from Girona's long and embattled past are exhibited in this fascinating museum. Rooms organized chronologically and by theme educate visitors on the ways the city has developed.
Carrer de la Força 27, Girona, Catalonia, 17004, Spain972-222229Sight Details
Rate Includes: €4.20; free 1st Sun. of month, Closed Mon. -
9. Museu del Cinema
An interesting collection of artifacts and movie-related paraphernalia traces the evolution of movies, starting with Chinese shadow puppetry, through the first rudimentary moving pictures, to the Lumière brothers. The Cine Nic toy filmmaking machines, originally developed in 1931 by the Nicolau brothers of Barcelona and now being relaunched commercially, allow even novices to put together their own movies.
Carrer de la Sèquia 1, Girona, Catalonia, 17001, Spain972-412777Sight Details
Rate Includes: €6; free 1st Sun. of month, Closed Mon. Sept.--June -
10. Passeig Arqueològic
The landscaped gardens of this stepped archaeological walk are below the Barri Vell's restored Carolingian walls (which you can walk, in parts) and enjoy superlative views of the city from belvederes and watchtowers. From there, climb through the Jardins de la Francesa to the highest ramparts for a view of the cathedral's 11th-century Torre de Carlemany.
Girona, Catalonia, Spain
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