Date Night in Girona in footsteps of the Game of Thrones

Almost a year ago I received a gift with several boxes. Among them, were hotel stays in cities of Spain, which included a date night with dinner and breakfast. A couple of years ago I traveled to the Costa Brava for the first time. I did not even think about going through Girona, the Catalan city. But after the last season of Game of Thrones, and knowing that we were going back to the Costa Brava, how could I not visit Girona?

If you have not spent the last few years in a cave, you have already heard about the Game of Thrones series. Since the American channel HBO has adapted for television, the saga of the writer Georges RR Martin has become a phenomenon. 7 seasons have already been broadcast, and the wait for the 8th is getting longer and longer, while speculation is going on with the next events.

If you are thinking about traveling in the next holidays to the area, and you are a big fan of the series do not stop reading! And even if you are not or have not even seen a single chapter, Girona is worth it. With a few weeks in advance, I contacted the hotel, and they did not have any problems to make the reservation, so this was the beginning to plan our weekend.

Our visit was on the same day, something quick since we were staying somewhere else, but we were able to see the main locations. I understood why HBO chose this city to embody, from the sixth season, certain districts of King's Landing and Braavos. I loved to walk there, trying to find the scenes involving Maisie Williams, aka Arya Stark or Jaime Lannister.

Weekend in Girona in the footsteps of the Game of Thrones

Day 1

The day starts like any other day with work, lunch, work and back home. That's when the routine changes. Once at home, a giant backpack awaits me to fill with clothes, footwear, toiletries, first aid kit and everything necessary to travel through Girona. In these moments I realize that leaving everything for the last day is not the most ideal.

We remove everything from the cupboards and drawers and fill the backpacks (as always, with more things than necessary). Time passes and the time to catch the bus approaches. At the end, with the backpacks prepared and all the documents, we left the house.

We arrive at the airport around 10 o'clock at night, and our flight is at 6:30 in the morning. It's a very long night. We take a dinner at an airport station and at 11:30 we go to the place where we will spend the night. We woke up about 4, since the airport opens at 5 o'clock. We set out to check-in and check in the giant backpack, which, from now on, I'll call suitcase.

Everything is perfect. We passed the security check and, once inside, we had breakfast at a restaurant, and around 6 am we embarked on the plane. I take the opportunity to start the book that I plan to read on this trip. It is A Game of Thrones from the saga A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm a fan of Game of Thrones. I do not have a chapter when I notice that I am not learning anything and that my eyelids fall, so I decide to try to get some sleep.

When we land and leave the plane, the first thing we do is look in the panels where our next flight is and go to the indicated area. Once settled, I turn on the phone and call my parents! I spend hours reading until the boarding begins. We boarded the plane and spent the whole flight watching movies and trying to sleep, until we arrived in Barcelona.

At the airport we have to pass immigration. We go for our bags and leave the airport. The first thing we do is look for an ATM and get enough money, since we will have to pay the hostel and other expenses such as transportation, food. We leave the airport and look for the signs that indicate the way to catch the train, and we head towards there.

We arrived at the Sants station in Barcelona approximately 30 minutes before our train left. We had enough time to find everything without problems, and we waited a little while for the time. Well, the journey was very fast and comfortable. At 9:45 we take the Barcelona train, and before 10:30 we are already in Girona.

We left the station, and before doing anything else, we decided to go locate our hotel. Once located we went for a walk, since we would not have the room until 12 o'clock. Well, at the moment we did not reach the old town, although to start the weekend well we went to the bakery to buy some Xuixos, since in Girona they have a lot of fame. We were treated wonderfully, and the xuixos were very good.

As 12 is already approaching, we return to the hotel and they give us a room. The hotel is not very central. The room is very nice and everything is great. Now it's time to start the tourist route. Now with less weight on top we go to the center. At the hotel they gave us a map, although we also had one printed just in case.

We walked quietly, and we arrived first of all to Placa de Catalunya, our starting point for the visit in the old town of Girona. We cross the bridge and we get closer to the area that we are most interested in visiting. There we have a tourist information point nearby. A very nice girl takes care of us, and gives us a map and marks the points of interest.

With the map, I walk through what looks like the old town. There are many restaurants and bars, and some stops of typical products. We continue walking more or less straight, and well, we see that there is a bridge, and we look out, because in Girona the Casas del Onar are very famous. We saw them from bridges and different points of view. It is very beautiful to see.

Well, we continue walking and we arrive at a big building, will it be the Cathedral? Well, no, it was the Esglesia de Sant Feliu. We continue through that area, and we reach a square, and it starts to rain.

Do you remember Sam? Surely the most achuchable of the series? He undertook a long way to the Ancient Library to become a master. As it turns out, the old library is none other than the Monasterio de Sant Pere de Galligants, the now Museum of Architecture of Catalonia. This is the first location we could not enter. We go on the other side, and we arrive at the Cathedral.

Shame, shame, shame! It is to arrive at the cathedral of Girona and not be able to stop saying the phrase with which Cersei made her particular walk of fame. The Cathedral is in most part as we have seen it in the series, has a great stairway and the building is quite impressive. In the series the location was used as part of King's Landing and is a main part of the plot of the fifth season and part of the sixth. I was going to make a spoiler on the cathedral, but I better keep it to myself in case you have not seen the season.

It coincided that right there we found the temporary exhibition Girona Plato, which was a tour of all the films that chose the city as setting for the plot. Obviously Game of Thrones occupied an important part of the exhibition. Among the things that we could see was a costume of the night guard (a replica, I suppose) and photos of several of the locations of the series.

Behind the cathedral, in Carrer del Bisbe Josep Cartana is where Arya begged while she was blind. Going down the pedestrian streets that are to the left of the cathedral are the Arab baths, which are actually Romanesque in style. It is the second location to which we could not enter. This location appears with two different aspects like a bath and like the place where Arya embalms the corpses with her little friend, the Abandoned Girl.

Further down is the square where the theater scene of Braavos was filmed. Here Arya sees the death of her father and her sister's wedding with Joeffrey, which in reality is called the Placa dels Jurats.

As we walk towards the other side, crossing the Puja del Rei Marti, we get immersed in Braavos, the locations that appear at the beginning of the sixth season. It is also where the trepidante pursuit of Arya by the abandoned girl, parkour included (Pujada de Sant Domenec).

Leaving behind these stages and crossing the river towards the other part of the city is the ice cream shop. The queue is long because there is a lot of demand in summer. We were also able to park less than a kilometer from the cathedral. There is an air of Venice around the canals, an air of Latin quarter at the turn of the streets, a resemblance to Rome, every time we take small cobbled streets.

And the walk along the intact ramparts, overlooking the city and overlooking the Pyrenees, is really nice. Well, once seen, we entered new through some of the streets of the old town. We went into a little shop, and well, in the end we decided to cross the bridge and see what was on the other side. We went to the Plaza del Mileni and toured that area a bit.

The weather did not improve. We were already getting tired, and decided to head towards the hotel. We would still have to walk for a while. We showered quietly, and well as I said at the beginning we had the dinner included in the hotel, so at about 9 we went down to dinner.

In the half board, the romantic candlelight dinner consisted of a menu where we could choose first salad with salmon or cream of vegetables, then llobarro or port-style pork, and tiramisu dessert or lemon sorbet.

First we both chose the vegetable soup, and we did not like it too much and then the fish and the meat. Both dishes were very good. Of desserts we also chose one of each, and well, they were good, although they had too much decoration for our taste. Of course, the drink did not have to pay part, and we entered the price.

Weekend in Girona in the footsteps of the Game of Thrones

Day 2

The day dawned gray but it was not cold. We got up at 8 o'clock and went to breakfast. The truth is that if dinner did not convince us at all, breakfast was very good. There was a section of hot food, also bread, sausages, cereals, sweets (also xuixos) and a large variety of juices. The breakfast was great.

Well, we go back to the room and prepare the bags. We go to Plaza Catalunya. First we go to the Arab baths that close at 2 pm, and the cathedral closes later. The site is small, and the most beautiful is the first site that we visited, so the visit is short. Even so, the visit was good.

Now we go to the cathedral, and visit La Nave, Los Tesoros and the Clause. It was worth entering. I took out my Canon and shoot as I was seeing some of the floral decorations. We had already visited the basic sites we had planned. so with this sunny day, we decided to go back to see the Cases del Onyar, and make some more pictures of the bridges.

Noon was approaching, and we decided to go to eat. We searched Tripadvisor ideas for dinner since we still did not know the city. In the end we opted for tapas, and the truth is that we ate very well. We ate some very tender steamed mussels and a mellow black rice. The dessert recommended by the waiter (chocolate trilogy) also very good.

It was almost time to leave. It was only a weekend but it is always a shame to leave. Our train left at 17.10. We decided to go to the station early. Then we went down to the high-speed zone and we went to wait for our train. At the scheduled time our train arrived. Our journey was only to Barcelona, ​​but I must also note that the journey is very short and is very comfortable.

We arrived in Sants, and well, now we had to wait an hour for our bus to arrive at the hotel in Barcelona. This weekend was ending.

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