Audio Guide: Girona Introduction Walking Tour (Self Guided), Girona

Girona sits in northeastern Catalonia, where every cobblestone seems to gossip about old allegiances and bitter defeats. Long before tourist maps and cafe terraces, Iberian tribes pitched up here in the 6th century BC. The Romans soon followed, stamping the place with the name Gerunda-“near the river”-a practical nod to the Onyar River, which still slices the city neatly into old and new.

From there, Girona became less a hometown and more a prize in a tug-of-war. Visigoths, Moors, Franks-each took their turn, layering cultures like coats of paint. Its prime position near the Pyrenees made it valuable, but also cursed: the city endured more than twenty sieges, enough to earn the grim title “the city of a thousand sieges.” The most famous came in 1809, when Girona held Napoleon’s forces at bay for seven months. Starving, disease-ridden, and ultimately defeated, the city still turned that ordeal into a symbol of Catalan grit.

But not all of Girona’s past is written in blood and brick. In the Middle Ages it thrived as a centre of trade and religion. Its Jewish Quarter, El Call, became one of the most important in medieval Catalonia, full of scholars, merchants, and rabbis whose influence reached far beyond these walls. That flourishing ended abruptly with the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, but the labyrinth of streets remains-a place where history still lingers in the shadows.

Landmarks like the Girona Cathedral and the Ancient City Walls, rooted in Roman stone and medieval ambition, are milestones in a long story of endurance and reinvention.

So when you walk Girona, don’t expect a city frozen in time. Expect one that wears its scars openly, tells its stories through towers and alleys, and reminds you with every step: survival here has always meant adaptation.