Friday, January 31, 2020

Girona

Girona (cat. Girona) is a city and a municipality in northeastern Catalonia, its the capital of the comarca Gironès and the province of Girona. It belongs to the area of the Comarques Gironines.
The city lays at the confluence of four rivers: Ter, Onyar, Güell and Galligants, at an altitude of 75 m a. s. l. Its municipal boundary limits to the north with Sant Julià de Ramis and Sarrià de Ter, to the east with Celrà, to the southeast with Juià and Quart, to the southwest with Fornells de la Selva, Vilablareix and Salt, and to the west with Sant Gregori.
The first settlers were the Iberians of the Indigees tribe, located in the higher settlements that surround and enclose the Girona plain, such as the gorge of the current Sant Julià de Ramis, which was the most important. In the wake of the Sertori wars (82-72 BC), towards 77 BC, Pompey built an oppidum (fortified walled square) on Via Heraclea (future Via Augusta) to defend it and fight against the sedentary Sertori, the faction of the Populares, who had risen armed with the Roman Hispania against Sulalla of the faction of the Optimates who controlled the power in Rome. It is then, for these military needs, that the Roman occupants founded the original Girona, which was called at that time Gerunda, whose etymology has not yet been clarified, although it could mean “between the Undarius”, name of the current river Onyar in the Iberian language. See here more history
Its Old Town or Barri Vell is one of the most evocative in Europe, and has some monumental elements that are unique on the continent. It is delimited by the so-called Passeig de la Muralla, the round walkway on the old Carolingian walls from 9th century and the Late Middle Ages (14th and 15th centuries). Among its monuments are the Call (former Jewish quarter, the best preserved in Spain), as well as the famous and colorful Cases de l’Onyar (houses on the river Onyar), and above all there is the Cathedral, with a very unique large nave, which is the widest in the world in a Gothic style.

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