Game Of Thrones has been shot at many places and Girona in Spain is one of them. I am a big fan of the series and when we planned our first anniversary trip to Spain, all I wanted was to visit all the beautiful places where the series had been shot.

For a day outing we chose this small city of Girona around 92 Kms away from Barcelona. Even if you have never watched Game of Thrones(GoT) please do visit the city because it is such a beautiful place. But for the GoT fans it is a must visit, especially for episode 10 of season 6. The train journey took us around 40 mins on an express train and costed Euro 32.50 for two people one way. We had booked the journey for around 9:30 AM and back at 6:00 PM the same day.The train leaves from Barcelona Sants.

The city has beautiful architecture and once you visit you will be amazed to see that ther place is not crowded and has a very charming  ambience. When we got down from the train and was making our way to the first location, we felt like we were the only two people in the place.

While making your way to the city, and our first stop the River Cade, we were crossing the river Onyar, and noticed the two sides of yellow and orange house which marks the start of the city of Girona.

Then we reached the River cafe which is a nice and friendly cafe The place was almost deserted and the weather so pleasant that we were really enjoying ourselves. But to be honest I was a little nervous as well, what if the place was not that worth and we don’t find any spots of GoT filming and I had forced Vish to come along with me.But the cafe was an amazing place to be – also to take the same picture as Mark Zuckerberg :).

After the photo session  we made our way to dry creek behind the cafe. The dry creek and the bridge was used as the old town filming location when Samwell Tarly came here for Maester-in-training.

Samwell, Gilly, and Sam Jr. approach the front desk of the Maesters’ citadel, which is actually Benedictine monastery Sant Pere de Galligants. It was an  Archaeology Museum and had an entry of 5 Euros each. It is a large building which makes you feel  small like Sam would have felt when he came for his training.  There are a lot of places to explore and one of the gates leads to the behind which had small fountains, and some stairs leading to the first floor. The first floor contained exhibits which was beautiful to see.

Once you cross this bridge you see the Girona Cathedral which has a beautiful structure. The main layout is gothic. The beauty of the place is ornate colored buildings with old styles and the cobble-stone roads. There are small pathways and a lot of stairs. After our cathedral visit we were sure that our day was made, and we still had a lot of filming locations to see. Next we went to Plaza del Jurats, where the theatre scene of Arya was filmed. It is an amazing place and overlooks the city and skyline. It is also the way to the Arabic Baths.

When we made our way here, we saw our first bunch of tourists. The baths have an entry price of around Euro 2 each person. Just before entering the bath, we saw a middle-aged man , come and set up his small chair and open his guitar case. After that the place magically changed. We fell in love with the ambience,green and yellow leaves on the trees, very pleasant cold weather, historic baths behind us and the music. He played a lovely piece on his guitar and Vish and I were mesmerized. It was a scene from a perfect life.

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After the experience of time halt and enchantment, we made our way to the Bath. The bath structure is Romanesque with an Arabic influence.  There are self guided tours one can do. A small room gives onto the frigidarium, or cold room, which in turn leads into the warm room or tepidarium. The most beautiful section is the apodyterium (changing room), where there’s an octagonal pool surrounded by eight columns topped with ornately carved capitals supporting horseshoe arches.When you see things which you have read only in history books and see the beautiful construction and the thoughts which went into the construction you believe that our ancestors had amazing architecture sense and grand places ot live in.

After the bath we went to the most exciting site the Sept of Baelor from Game of thrones where Queen Margaery’s Atonement was filmed. Oh my god!  I was super excited to see the placed and loved it. The long number of stairs leading to the teal colored gates, reminding the tense scene from the series. As we approached the cathedral from Via Augusta, we passed under a large archway, this was  the same archway Jamie Lannister and his troops, including House Tyrell, marched under to prevent Margaery’s atonement.  We took the 90 stair to the top and spent 30 mins just clicking pictures.

There were two more spots left for us to visit, but it was time to relax and eat and soak in the scene before us. We sat in the cafe in front of the Sept and had a glass of red wine each, some sandwiches and some desert. I remember having a hot chocolate and relishing every second of the time I spent. It makes me smile now as well. I was a very happy person here.

We went exploring behind the Sept and found the man playing guitar again and the site of the Girona city from this height was beautiful. I would love to retire in a place like this you know, where everyone knows everybody and it is a small city and you can sit for hours just having lunch or evening tea.

We then took the route which leads to Bisbe Cartaña, near the Jardins de la Francesa.Heading up the stairs, this street wraps around the Cathedral, which has a close-up view of the church’s architecture. It will also take you to the first scene of Season 6 with Arya, where she is begging and is then approached by The Waif for fight training.One of my favourite characters at the time I visited was Arya( People who watch GoT know that their favourite character keeps changing ) and it was amazing to think and take a picture of the exact place.

The last place we visited was The steps of Sant Domenec and it was a site to behold, there was just a cafe next to it where we spent an hour before walking back to the train station to take our train back to Barcelona.

On our way back we visited  Plaça de la Independència which was almost completely enclosed by arcades and the outdoor tables of restaurants and bars where friends meet up to chat and with a very casual setting.

What a day it was! A tribute to my passion for Game of Thrones. 

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