Girona and Figueres

On Saturday I went on one of the ISA day trips to Girona, a town about an hour 1/2 north west of Barcelona. The city was built by the Romans in 100 BC (aka a REALLY long time ago) and was built with walls surrounding the town. It's the first main city that nomads would travel through coming from the north, so as time went on the city started spilling over the original walls, and in 1500, new walls were built around the city which still stand today. It was such a beautiful little city - it was pretty cool to see physical walls define city lines - I'd never seen anything like that. You cross one of 6 or 7 bridges across the river that surrounds the city, and then pass through the gate into the center.

This statue sits at the main entrance to Girona. The legend was that if you tried to get into the city at night after the gates had been locked, you could kiss the lionness and she would know whether or not you belonged there, and if you were truly from Girona, she would unlock the gate and let you in. The legend continued that if you were new to the city, you had to be "baptized" by kissing the lion, and also if you were a visitor but wanted to return to Girona, you had to kiss the lion. (Our tour guide told us that last year during the swine flu scare, they took away the stairs to reach the lion statue so no one could kiss it and spread germs!)

Everywhere in the city were these beautifully colored houses. We learned that when the city was remodeled after some war, they had to rebuild the houses with an ugly type of rock, so the builders were given a choice of 6 or 7 paint colors to choose from. No two houses on a block could be painted the same color, and that was how you told people where you lived (I live in the orange house between this and that street!)

Girona also had a large Jewish community at one point and we walked through that section of town. When the Jews did live there, they were highly valued because they spoke Arabic, and since the Muslims played a huge part in building much of the city, they were used at translators. Our tour guide noted that there are no remarkable buildings or distinctions that separate the Jewish quarters from the rest of the city, except for these markings on the doorways where the mezuzah was once placed.

After we walked around and saw the city, we stopped for lunch and some shopping, and then we headed to Figueres, the town where Salvador Dali was born, and where his museum, Teatro Museu Dali, is located.

I don't know how to describe the museum other than wonderfully strange. If you've never seen Dali's art, you really should - it's unlike anything I've ever seen before. Every single thing in the museum was weird and strange and beautiful all at the same time. You could stare at a single piece of his art for an hour and still find something new about it. Here's a little taste, but the rest of my pictures from the museum are on facebook!

(This piece of art takes up an entire room. The "eyes" are two pictures hanging on the wall, the "nose" is a fire place, and the "lips" are a sofa. You have to climb a flight of stares and stare through a special glass to get this view of the entire face.)

This was the second of 3 ISA sponsored trips. Next weekend we go to Costa Brava for an overnight. It's supposed to be beautiful!

This week Maggie and I have a little itinerary planned out, because we began to realize that we're running out of time in this beautiful city and we need to make sure we see everything!

Here's the plan for the rest of the week:

Tuesday (tomorrow) : Montserrat

Wednesday: beach day

Thursday: La Sagrada Familia and the Gothic quarter

Friday: Montbau (a farther, less tourist-y, more beautiful beach)

Saturday-Sunday: Costa Brava

What a week! Can't wait =]

xoxo

Lauren