Every turn leads to another quaint alleyway, another winding cobblestone road beckoning travelers to walk down and explore. While Barcelona was grand and quite contemporary with Gaudí's influences everywhere to be seen, Girona felt perfectly preserved as it may have been hundreds of years ago.
My friends and I planned a day and night in Girona when we found plane tickets out of the Girona airport to Pisa for only $21 (thank you Ryanair). I expected it to be a more slowpaced day, not packed to the brim with the must see's and must do's of Barcelona, and I was not disappointed. The city felt like more of what I expected Spain to be, and I think I actually enjoyed my one day in Girona more than my 3 in Barcelona.
We started our afternoon out by dashing in and out of shops, admiring unique little trinkets and the quaint footbridges over the river. As Girona is less touristy than Barcelona, we found ourselves actually having to detain our appetites and eat lunch later than usual, in the Spanish style.
We settled into Konig, a cafe by the cathedral serving up Catalan food, and of course, we had to order the patatas bravas! How could we go through our last day in Spain and not order our favorite dish?
They were crispier than our last two servings and the spices were mixed in with the sauce rather than dusted on the potatoes. We were quite satisfied, but decided thus far the second restaurant we got patatas bravas at was still in the lead, with the first and Konig tied for second.
A quick detour was taken to give this little lion guy a kiss, which means that someday you will return to Girona!
We decided to take a peek around the grounds of the cathedral and were blown away by its preserved beauty. We all agreed it was nothing short of a fairy tale setting and would be the perfect backdrop for a romantic film.
One of the most spectacular aspects of Girona is that it's a town nestled between mountain ranges. The further we climbed up the stairs behind the cathedral, the more stunning the views became.
After sufficient exploring of the cathedral grounds, we moved on to scoping out the rest of this little city. It was dotted with gorgeous churches, sweeping steps, and wide plaças.
Another part of Girona that I loved is how quiet it was. We didn't ever really get that feeling of being a tourist because it seemed like (for once) locals far outnumbered us. I think that they aren't too used to getting too many tourists, particularly Americans, because nobody could guess our nationality on the first try. Not being pegged as an American tourist for once was a nice change of pace for all of us.
Right as the sun was setting, we took to the edge of the historic center up to the walls lining the perimeter. A short climb later, we were rewarded with a gorgeous orange sunset right over the mountains.
Soon after sunset, we retired to our room for a short bit to relax and ready ourselves for dinner. In Spain, it's normal to eat dinner no earlier than 9 pm. It was around that time that we stopped for more tapas down the street before arriving at Els Jardins de la Mercè for dinner around 10 pm. We weren't going to order patatas bravas, but after the waitress took down our dinner orders (she has to help us with the Catalan translations), she asked if we'd like a dish for the wait. How could we say no?
These patatas bravas were definitely more delicious than the ones we has earlier in Girona. They were thick and fluffy and we devoured them in a matter of minutes. In the end, these patatas bravas took 2nd place overall, booting the original restaurant we tried to 3rd and the ones we had at lunch in Girona to 4th.
After a delicious and rich meal of buttery cod filet, mashed potatoes and lentils, we made our way back to our hostel to finally lay ourselves to rest before our early flight out to Italy in the morning.
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