Kings Landing aka Girona

This was our third visit to Girona in the Catalan region of north-east Spain. Last year, whilst house sitting in Santa Christina d’Aro, we rode the 34kms each way on a blistering hot day (but that’s another story) and had a small taster of this magnificent medieval city. We returned a few days later in the car and had a proper exploration of it’s history, cathedral and cobbled streets. I wrote a blog article about that day that you can read here. Today’s visit, however, put a completely different twist on some of the landmarks here.I should state up front that Jacqueline and I are massive fans of the TV series Game of Thrones (GoT).  In preparation for season 7 being aired this year we re-watched season 6, back in Australia, before we left on our travels in April. During the last episode of that season there is a dramatic seen in front of the Great Sept of Baelor in Kings Landing where Margaery is to do her walk of atonement. I commented to Jacqueline whilst watching that I recognized the location and was pretty sure it was the Cathedral in Girona. I checked back through my photos from last year and sure enough that was it (despite some ‘enhancements’). Further research on the internet revealed that many scenes had in fact been filmed in Girona.

In the course of investigating places to see related to the series I came across an excellent blog post describing the key locations and giving great directions of how to get to each of them. Instead of regurgitating it all I’ll just point you to the article – Game of Thrones self guided tour. It’s definitely worth a read in conjunction with this post if you are a fan.

So, on a not so hot day, we set off on our cycles again for this wonderful city. Two and a half hours later we arrived, had a bite to eat at a cafe in Placa de L’Independence, locked up the bikes and went exploring.

We spent the next 2 hours happily wandering through the old town of Girona (which is just beautiful) finding new sights we hadn’t seen previously and re-visiting locations from our previous time here.

It was great fun seeing some of these locations and putting them ‘together’ with the plot lines in the series. Some of the locations we visited were the Benedictine monastery of Sant Pere de Galligants which was the Maesters’ Citadel and some of the streets where the market and chase scenes between Arya and The Waif took place.

The highlight of course was going back to the Girona Cathedral and the 90 steps leading up to it.

All too soon it was time to finish our tour and start the long cycle home. Before departing we re-fueled with a delicious double scoop artisan ice cream before departing.

It was wonderful getting a whole new take on the city and putting real places into the context of the fantasy TV series. If you come to this part of Spain then Girona is definitely worth a visit – even if you aren’t a fan of GoT!!!