Instead of Barcelona: Girona, the Medieval Catalan City That Game of Thrones Discovered Late

Barcelona is an extraordinary city paying the price of its own beauty: the Rambla has become a corridor of tourist traps, the Gothic Quarter overflows with souvenir shops and rents have driven residents out of the centre. If you love Catalonia but want to experience it differently, board an AVE train and in thirty-eight minutes you will be in Girona.

Girona is a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants that has everything you are looking for: an intact medieval centre, a Gothic cathedral with the widest nave in Europe (23 metres), a Jewish quarter — the Call — that is the best preserved on the continent, and colourful houses that mirror themselves in the river Onyar, as they do in Porto or Amsterdam.

The Call is a labyrinth of narrow alleyways and stone staircases dating back to the ninth century: here lived one of the most important Jewish communities in medieval Spain, and the Centre Bonastruc ça Porta tells that story with intelligence and sensitivity. Walking through the Call is like stepping into another era: the stones are worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, light filters from above and every corner reveals a detail — an inscription, an arch, a walled-up window.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria dominates the city from atop a monumental staircase of ninety steps (used as a location for Game of Thrones). Inside, the single nave is a space of striking purity, and the Chapter Museum houses the Tapís de la Creació, a twelfth-century Romanesque tapestry that is one of the oldest and most important woven works in Europe.

The Banys Àrabs — the medieval Arab baths — are a small architectural gem with pools, arches and a dome that evokes the Alhambra in Granada. Girona also has a world-class gastronomic scene: El Celler de Can Roca, three Michelin stars, is considered one of the best restaurants in the world, and the rocambolesc from the same family serves artisan gelato in the market square.

Staying in Girona costs half as much as Barcelona: hotels in the old town, B&Bs in the colourful houses on the Onyar, apartments with views of the cathedral. From here you can reach the Costa Brava in half an hour, the villages of the Empordà in slightly more, and Barcelona itself whenever you like — the fast train leaves every hour.