Barcelona in Colour II

Oh god it’s early. We have met up with our local friends and we are on the train to Girona. As explained to me, this place is famous for:

Being in some Game of Thrones episodes.
Being a cycling hub, apparently for Lance Armstrong, before his self-inflicted humiliation. Perhaps after too.
Being stunning beautiful in both situation and architecture.

I can attest to all three. We caught an early train to go about 100km out of town.

You can read a little more about the place in Barcelona in Black and White elsewhere on this good blog.

It’s Catalonian National Day, so the streets are decorated with yellow and red, which explains this at the breakfast buffet.

Here we are in ‘new’ town again.

Lovely paved streets harking back to a better, simpler time. Back when people walked everywhere.

All that walking probably makes for skinnier people, hence the skinny door. Ha ha, no that’s not the reason. It’s the same reason old houses have lower door lintels that you brain yourself on. Yes, the folks may have been a bit shorter back then but the main reason, that lives on in my Bangsue house, is that it’s cheaper to build.

A drinking fountain is thoughtfully and tastefully provided. Why can’t we have nice things like this at home? Anyway, time for old town.

As you can see the city wall is substantial. They say that it’s your enemies that teach you how to make big walls and it looks like the people in this town sure pissed off a lot of people. Here’s a photosphere of the carpark outside the wall with historically-accurate Citrons.

And this is the star. The Cathedral of Gerona is a pretty impressive pile. Inside they have a display explaining how it started out as a Roman temple, in Roman-times, and has been changed or rebuilt over the ages.

These steps are also the scene of a pivotal Game of Thrones, er, scene. Here we see two pilgrims paying homage.

It was a bloody hot day and there’s a lot of steps. As you can see, the square below and building look like something out of Disney except they are real houses that people live in. The real-deal.

You have to pay to get in but it’s worth the eight Euros or whatever we paid.

Whoops.

Inside there’s this guy. It’s a very Catholic place so Jesus is getting a punishing.

Inside is super-nice. I’m going to refer to that origin of fact, Wikipedia, and quote:

The cathedral’s interior includes the widest Gothic nave in the world, with a width of 23 metres (75 ft). Its construction was begun in the 11th century in the Romanesque architectural style, and continued in the 13th century in the Gothic style. Of the original Romanesque edifice only the 12th-century cloister and a bell tower remain. The second bell tower was completed in the 18th century.^{[citation needed]}

You can read all about it there. Here’s the roof.

All Gothic arches. There are various niches and rooms that are over-decorated in the Catholic style.

Must have cost a fortune to put that lot up, all to celebrate the chap who’s nude and bleeding in the middle.

The chapel downstairs is a bit more modest. Positively Calvinist compared to above.

This one is impressive, the three Kings of Orient bringing gifts to baby Jesus, in tapestry.

Outside is the functional part of the campus, where the day-to-day stuff gets done. Nice well.

Of course the instinct of over-decoration hasn’t gone away, it’s just a little camouflaged. Here we can see some noble lions helping to hold the place up.

The column capitals tell a story. No doubt some worthy tale of godliness, forgiveness or self-sacrifice for the betterment of the local community.

Oh! I guess not.

Anyhow, it’s a ~~damn~~ darn impressive place. See those carvings on the floor? There’s dead folks underneath.

There’s a little stained-glass museum upstairs. A lot of the exhibits were away, on tour or getting cleaned or something. However, the ones we did see were impressive.

Yeah, I don’t know either. Maybe they’re pointing at each others’ feet?

Under the cathedral is a small museum which is really worth a visit.

They have one of these.

Can’t walk past this.

There’s that guy again. They also have an illuminated manuscript.

You can tell it’s written on vellum because there are big holes in it. I assume they are original. Maybe where the sheep or goat got stabbed. The photo doesn’t show much but in real life this was a deeply impressive work. But not as impressive as…

This big tapestry, which illustrates the first book of the bible. And other stuff. It’s clearly incomplete but around the border are the months of the year, the seasons and on the inner corners are the four winds.

There are the fishes of the sea. The fish look OK but I think somebody got carried away.

Oh boy. Mrs Sachie says this looks like Shrek but I think this is what a turtle would look like if you had only ever read about them. The crab is OK but the snake has a beak.

Here’s Adam with some of his mates. Some… deer? A horse I guess? Is that a unicorn? He’s in the garden of Eden so he doesn’t have to wear pants… yet!

And here is Eve, the first mother and holding a child. The astute will note that Eve has a penis, albeit a small one, but we know she is a woman because she doesn’t have a beard.

Saint pigeon? Here are the months.

I’m not even going to make fun of these.

The thing is, the tapestry is huge. It takes up a wall and it’s intricately sewn and clearly an artifact from a society that is very foreign from our own. We loved it. Time to get outside though.

There is another church, this one outside the walls, but actually kind of built into the wall. Our cathedral ticket gets us into this one too.

I hope you like the photospheres. If not, here’s a panorama:

Here’s a photosphere anyway.

As usual, this very old, very beloved site of worship is lovingly decorated. I was impressed by the big painting on the roof. No doubt it’s angels strumming harps in paradise.

Oh well. It’s a saint earning his halo. I tell you, them Catholics sure do harp on about this kind of thing. I reckon that if you murdered a saint you’d want to keep that on the low-down.

Keeping in the vein of icky death, there’s another saint here. Mr Narcís is interred in a stone box. In 1286, the town was inundated with French soldiers and this church, being outside the wall, was a target of treasure and souvenir hunters and back in those days, the finest souvenirs (and treasures) were saint-parts. Now you may think that an elephant-foot umbrella stand is pretty impressive but that’s nothing compared to a fingerbone from a fancy saint. Such an artifact, installed in your local church, could turn your town into a site of pilgrimage. But you don’t want a bit of Saint Narcís.

Yep, the casket was full of flies that sickened the invaders and those poor, poor horses. Being from Australia, being covered in flies just looks like a Friday but the good citizens of Girona hold them very dear.

Let’s move to a lighter subject.

This church is very old. Ol’ Saint Felix up the top there was murdered back in 304AD and the place used to be run by the Romans. There are a series of these reliefs, 2000-years old or so. Let’s see how those from antiquity spent their days.

Fighting lions! That’s super-hardcore and macho. There’s a few like this and another series that tells the story as old as time itself. A young lady running away with a lover, then getting hunted down and killed by her own family. Or something like that. Nice to see the trees back then were made out of broccoli.

Frankly, it’s all a bit grim. But that’s church for you. What’s that? Up there?

Look, there’s another one over here and it’s, oh no. A child’s coffin.

Feeling a bit humble and depressed, yet full of the holy spirit, full to the bloody gunnels, we went off in search of more cheerful vistas. It was a nice day after all.

I like this idea of an arched bridge over a footpath, for another footpath. Looking at it now, where does it go? Nice way to frame a photo though.

Now the last bit for this chapter. Mrs Sachie and I had been wandering about for a good part of the day. As we all know, sightseeing develops a dry throat in a tourist and, as astonishing and beautiful the surrounds were, I was footsore, hungry and thirsty. It was time for some Spanish hospitality and we walked over Mt Eifel’s bridge for a feed and a pint.

What the heck is that, let’s have a closer look.

Thanks to the miracle of digital zoom, those are European otters going about their business. Indeed, frolicking. I was deeply impressed that this river, running though the middle of town was clean enough and safe enough to support big mammals like this swimming about in the middle of the day. Apparently untroubled by road-runoff or feral cats. Their presence is a testament to the civilization of this town. Here’s a video.