What to Do in Girona: The Best Activities in Catalonia's Medieval City
Updated: Oct 4
Girona does a lot of things well and very few of them loudly. The old city has been inhabited continuously since Roman times, the Jewish quarter is one of the best-preserved in Europe, and the cathedral appeared in Game of Thrones without most visitors realising it before they were already inside it.
It's also a practical base for a wide arc of Catalonia — the Costa Brava beaches to the east, the Dalí museums to the north, the Pyrenean foothills behind it. Here's how to use the time you have there well.
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Best for First-Timers: Girona Old City Walking Tour
The old city is compact and walkable but genuinely layered — you can wander it for hours without a guide and miss most of what makes it interesting. A two-hour walking tour with a local guide covers the Roman walls (still largely intact and walkable), the medieval Jewish quarter called the Call, the Arab baths, the cathedral, and the Eiffel Bridge — designed by Gustave Eiffel's company before he built the one in Paris.
The food-tasting version adds stops for local cheeses, cured meats, and Catalan specialties along the route. Good way to combine orientation and lunch into the same two hours. Runs year-round.
Tours: Girona old city walking tour · 4.5★ · Girona: 2-hour walking tour with food tasting · Browse all Girona tours → · Search Viator →
Best for Families & Kids: Mushroom Foraging Walk in the Garrotxa Forests
Autumn is when Catalonia's obsession with mushrooms reaches its peak, and the forests around Girona — particularly the beech and oak woodlands of the Garrotxa — are among the best foraging grounds in Spain. The season runs from late September into November depending on rainfall.
The half-day gastronomic wild walk combines foraging with cooking — you find the mushrooms, learn to identify them, and then prepare and eat them. It's run by local guides who've been foraging these forests their whole lives. Kids who are normally indifferent to food tend to engage when they found it themselves. Outside mushroom season, the same area runs herb and plant walks through the same landscape.
Tours: Girona: half-day gastronomic wild walk & mushroom foraging · Browse all Girona nature tours → · Search Viator →
Best if You Only Have a Few Hours: Dalí Theatre-Museum Day Trip to Figueres
Figueres is 40 minutes north of Girona and home to the Dalí Theatre-Museum — the largest surrealist object in the world, designed entirely by Dalí himself as both his greatest artwork and his mausoleum (he's buried in the crypt below). It's one of the most visited museums in Spain and for good reason: it's not like any other museum you've been to.
If you're already in Girona, going independently by train is easy — Figueres is a direct 25-minute trip. The guided tour from Barcelona adds context that transforms a series of confusing rooms into a coherent, if still bizarre, vision.
Tours: Dalí Theatre-Museum & Figueres day trip from Barcelona · Browse all Girona & Costa Brava tours → · Search Viator →
Most Unique: Costa Brava Sea Caves Kayak Tour
The Costa Brava coastline east of Girona is one of the most dramatic in Spain — limestone cliffs dropping directly into clear Mediterranean water, hidden coves only accessible by sea, sea caves that cut deep into the rock. Kayak tours run from the beach towns along the coast and get you into places that boats can't reach.
The water clarity on the Costa Brava is consistently good from May through October. Autumn is particularly good because summer's algae bloom has cleared and the sea stays warm into November. Tours depart from Tossa de Mar, Palamós, and L'Estartit.
Tours: Costa Brava sea caves kayak & snorkel tour · Browse all Costa Brava water activities → · Search Viator →
Best Guided Experience: The Full Jewish Quarter & Cathedral Tour
The Jewish quarter of Girona — the Call — was one of the most important Jewish communities in medieval Catalonia. The narrow stone streets, the synagogue remains, the Museum of Jewish History, and the cathedral that looms above it tell a story of coexistence and expulsion that shaped the entire Iberian Peninsula.
A guided tour of the full circuit — Roman walls, Jewish quarter, Arab baths, cathedral interior — takes about three hours and rewards the time. The cathedral's single Gothic nave is the widest in the world. That detail tends to land differently once you're standing inside it.
Tours: Girona old city & Jewish quarter guided walking tour · Browse all Girona tours → · Search Viator →
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