Mi Mi My Girona

Girona is an awesome city. We spent 6 glorious nights here and used this ancient Catalan city as our base for two very cool day trips. After writing that ridiculously long monster post last time, I will go ahead and write everything about Girona here and then give each of our day trips their own entry.

Girona

Catalonia

Girona is a major city with around 100,000 people 50 miles or so from Barcelona in the semi-autonomous region of Catalonia in Spain. As many of you are aware, Catalonia is due to vote in September about its independence from Spain. It really does feel like another country. The language Catalan is widely spoken and pretty much all signage is in this language which if I had to describe it feels like a mix of Spanish, French and words that look like neither. Our apartment was located in the old town, part of city dating back to Roman times. Among the winding narrow cobbled streets and along the wide shallow river that divides the city you can see many Catalan flags draped from windows, a symbol to represent independence. The support for local products is high. All the restaurants we went to serve bottled water and sparkling water made in Catalonia and mostly Catalan wines. There is a deep sense of pride in the community.

Plaza with series of Catalan Flags

Catalan Pride

Girona is a beautiful city. It has an old world charm that isn't lost in a bustling modern landscape. The oldest part of the city lies on the East side of the river. Here there is an impressive cathedral, most of the city's museums and some of the best restaurants in town. Much of the west side of the river was built significantly later (maybe the 1600s) and includes the market, a large shopping and hotel district, and an impressive plaza that seems to host all kinds of civic and cultural activities. Also West of the river is a massive city park that hosts an outdoor Tuesday and Saturday market.

Hummer trying to drive near the Cathedral

View of a Cathedral from across the River

Our apartment was right in the old town. In fact the apartment seemed to be built literally beside the crumbling former city walls. Immediately behind our apartment was a massive hill with the University perched on top. To climb it would be a special challenge but thankfully our apartment building was host to a public elevator that  during the day would let anyone go from the top of the hill to the bottom or vice versa. There is free parking at the University so we were able to leave our car at the top and then make our way down.

The view from our apartment at night

Restaurant Occi
We arrived on a Friday night and had unequivocally one of the best meals of the trip thus far. The restaurant was a block from our apartment and was a fusion of European cuisines. The restaurant, Occi, was a small rectangular glass enclosed space with maybe 15 tables. We arrived around 10:30pm to find only one table left as though it was waiting for us. Sean and I both started with a carpaccio, a typically Italian dish made with raw meats pounded paper thin served with olive oil. Sean's was with prawns and mine with beef. The portions were massive which we have come to learn in Spain the first and second course are roughly the same size (and price) so the appetizer is larger and the entree a bit smaller than American portions but still a lot of food. The prawn carpaccio was one of the best single bites of food I had. Soft and creamy and sweet. It was served with a small endive salad with shaved foie gras that didn't seem to pair well with the prawns. It was best eaten separately. The beef carpaccio was paper thin and drizzled with delicious (likely local) olive oil and topped with a salad that paired the meat perfectly. I still in bliss from the first course when the second course arrived, I ordered seared duck breast with a blue cheese ravioli which sounds like it shouldn't pair well but was actually amazing together. It was such a clever dish and the preparation was flawless. The duck was medium rare with a crisp sear of the skin but the fat wasn't fully rendered making each bite delicious and decadent paired with the strong salty cheese ravioli it was incredible and I would eat it again. Sean had the merluza which is a fish commonly eaten in Spain. It was a delicate white fish and once again the preparations were exquisite.

Dueling Carpaccios at Occi

The Outdoor Market
Saturday we ventured to the large city park Devesa to explore the outdoor market. We expected a small farmer's market but instead found what could be described as part farmer's market part flea market. There was certainly lots of food to buy. Mostly fruits and vegetables some meats and cheese. We even came across a stand selling live animals (chickens, baby ducks, rabbits) presumably for food. But beyond the food there were aisle upon aisle of tents selling cheap shoes, purses, clothing, towels, kitchen gadgets, etc. It was massive.

Live Animals for Sale at the Outdoor Market

Pigeon anyone?

After the outdoor market where we had purchased a bit of fruit and cheese, we headed to the large indoor market in town that sells mostly fish and meat. There we purchased some nice cuts of osso bucco (although cow not veal) it was like 5.9 euro per kilo which is like $3 a pound. We saw a stall in the market selling horse meat which is surprisingly red in color. It really stands out from other meat products but I can't bring myself to knowingly eat horse even if the Dothraki do it. Determined to cook dinner we got a few potatoes, carrots, green onion bulbs and beef stock. We also got a few fresh chorizo sausages to make as an appetizer.

Spanish Time
Spanish life has a very different time flow than anywhere else in the world. While there are regional differences, it is very common for lunch to ~only~ be served between 1-3:30pm and dinner to be served between 8-11pm. You MUST eat at these times or you will find the only culinary options open to be the equivalent of Dennys. So if you're hungry at 11, 12, or 4 you can grab a bocadillo (a small baguette with some meat in it) and wait for a proper time or you can eat some pretty disappointing food. We have often been caught in this situation as we stay up late, wake up late, sight see and then get hungry between 4-6 only to find everything closed. On one such day, we ended up getting donor kebabs (which is like a gyro but more delicious. It is cheap and common although mostly considered more of a late night drunk food than a proper meal). It was hot outside and hotter in the kebab shop where the rotisseries of lamb were turning. I was dripping sweat and a little old Spanish woman sitting in the shop enjoying a cold beer offered me her fan. I politely declined but she was insistent I use and I reluctantly took it. You always see fans sold in souvenir shops but this was proof that Spanish women really do carry them around. I used the fan while we were waiting for our food to be ready and tried several times to return the fan but the woman insisted in Spanish that she had more at home and for me to keep it. So thanks to that random and unexpected act of generosity, I now have a fan, which admittedly has come in handy as it has been hot for a good week thanks to a heat wave over Europe. Sundays, everything and I mean everything is closed (restaurants, shops, groceries, etc). The only things open on Sundays are churches (naturally), museums, and ice cream shops.

One of the Girona Cathedrals

Close up of a different Girona Cathedral

Virgin with Child on Cathedral Edifice

On Sunday we went on a day trip to Olot to hike extinct volcanoes. Don't worry I will describe this in detail in my next post.

Jewish Museum
On Monday we discovered another Spanish time challenge. Mondays are like little Sundays. All the museums are closed and most of the good restaurants and shops. Had we realized this we might have spent Sunday in Girona doing museums and Monday in Olot but thankfully one museum in town was open and it was the best in the city, the Jewish History of Girona museum. Medieval Girona had a large and prominent Jewish quarter up until 1492 when the Jews were expelled from Spain. The museum is located in what used to the be Jewish quarter and follows the history and culture of the Girona Jewish people. It talks about their lives and times and has many recovered artifacts. Also part of the museum includes a medieval ritual bath that had recently been excavated.

Collection of Catalan Pottery

While we were in Girona it was scorchingly hot. A 'heat wave' has turned some of the most temperate parts of Spain into a broiler. Everyday in Girona was over 90 degrees with Tuesday reaching 99. Thankfully we were able to anticipate this and instead took a day trip on Tuesday to Figures to see the Teatro de Dali and then drove out to the Cap de Creus natural park on the very edge of Spain. Once again this day trip will be detailed in its own post and will include some very dramatic landscapes.

Tuesday evening when we returned from the coast we had dinner at a restaurant a stone's throw from our apartment that has kind of a cool gimmick, it mimicks going to a fish market. When you walk into Arroz I Peix, they hand you a glass of cava (sparkling white wine) and usher you over to a large table covered in ice and fish. There you pick what you would like to eat, they give you options on how they can cook it for you, they weigh it and you're good to go to your seat. They also have a menu of starters and rice dishes to supplement whatever you choose. We had ordered the tuna tartar from the starter menu and each ordered a rice dish. We looked over the selection and decided to get some fresh shrimp but due to the price we only got two (one each) but the chef was kind enough to throw in a third for free. He said we could have it grilled with olive oil, salt, parsley and that sounded good for us. There are a lot of seafood options and it can be intimidating trying to choose what you would like prepared. The day we went they had mostly shellfish and hearty fish (tuna and salmon). We might have gone for some nice white fish if they had anything like that. The meal was good, not the best we had. Mostly it was a cool concept.

Our Final Day in Girona
Wednesday was our last full day in Girona. It was still blazing hot everywhere but in our tiny well air conditioned apartment. We ventured out a few times to go to the history of Girona museum which was cheap but probably the worst museum I have ever been to. The layout made no sense. And the English parts of the museum were contained in a thick pamphlet that read like a book for each section on the main floor. However when we went to the next floor it seemed they did not print any pamphlets so there was no information once again about the civil war. In fact the second floor didn't even have information in Spanish. It was all in Catalan. We were the only people in the museum and parts of it were under construction. Sean and I have both been reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway on this trip (As if we aren't big enough weirdos, we start our own mini Spanish civil war book club aided by the fact Amazon lets people in the same household share books and read them at the same time if their accounts are linked). So naturally we are both eager for any information about the civil war and this museum had a whole room dedicated to it. With pictures and lots of newspaper clippings but all of it was in Catalan. So we took photos of many of the entries and plan to translate them via google translate. It got me thinking about checking the Seattle Library for microfiche from the 1930s to see if they have any of the articles Hemingway wrote during the war (He was a war correspondent in Spain during the Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance). Later in the day we ventured out again, this time to a medieval monastery situated on the edge of old town. The large slabs of rock kept the interior cool and the craftsmanship was amazing. The upstairs of the Monastery housed one of the Catalan Archeological museums (the region has four) containing a small but well organized collection of Catalan archeological finds with a brief history.

Uncovered Christian Monastery Tomb at the disappointing History of Girona Museum

Interior of a 12th century Monastery

Unfinished Stained Glass Window

Pillared courtyard of the Monastery. Each pillar has different carvings including some bizarre imagery not typical in Christian art. See next photo for close up.

Two tailed Merman Pillar in 12th Century Monastery

We fell in love with Girona. The people, the city, the area, and the culture. We ended our time in Girona the best possible way, with my favorite meal of this trip. We went to a tapas restaurant, Restaurant 8de7, we tried to frequent on Monday (only to find it closed). The food was not the best we had (as Restaurant Occi was superior and more expensive) but the experience was my favorite. It is a small hip little bar type restaurant on the West side of the river (the newer part). We entered and asked for a table for two to which the waitress responded to us in what turned out to be Catalan. Apparently Sean's Spanish or Catalan as the woman mistook it was good enough to mistake us for locals. She gave us a small table in the back. Everything was reasonably priced with massive portions for sharing. We decided on the menu de dia which included 3 courses and a bottle of wine for 12 euros. We also ordered an amazing salad off the tapa menu because another table had it and lets face it, raw vegetables are hard to come by in Spain. Oh the food. It was so delightful. Sean started with a chicken caesar salad and I had the cabra (a Spanish goat cheese that I am obsessed with) salad. Both were served on thin black stone plates (most commonly seen in Basque bars). We also had a plate of roasted vegetables. For our main courses Sean had a slow cooked pork shoulder blade in and I had the most adorable slider sized 'burger'. I use the term burger because that is how it was described in the menu but it was spiced more like a meat ball and cooked medium rare on traditional catalan tomato bread with a soft ripe cheese. It did not taste anything like an American interpretation of a burger but was fabulous and the small size made it possible to finish with dessert. We both had the catalan creme for dessert which is a traditional dish most similar to creme brulee. It has a carmalized sugar coating on top that you must gently crack through and then a rich eggy cream below that is less sweet than a traditional creme brulee and a lot brighter yellow in color. The serving staff was friendly and the portions were impressive. Not to mention the food was good. All in all our meal came to 31 euro with the addition of the salad. I wish we had discovered it earlier on our Girona trip because I certainly would have liked to have eaten there at least once more and try some of their a la carte options.

Ensaladas! Yay for fresh raw veggies. Restaurant 8de7

Adorable 'burger' from Restaurant 8de7