Girona Cathedral

Girona Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

Girona Cathedral stands at the top of a monumental flight of ninety steps in the old town of Girona, Catalonia, and a ticket is required, including an audio guide, which covers the cathedral, the cloister and the treasury, and often the nearby Basilica of Sant Feliu. The steps and the cathedral facade are famous as a filming location for Game of Thrones, representing the Great Sept of Baelor and the city of Braavos.

Walking tours of Girona combine the cathedral with the Jewish quarter, the Call, the Arab Baths, the city walls, the colourful houses on the Onyar river and the Eiffel bridge. Girona is about forty minutes from Barcelona by high-speed train, and it is the gateway to the Costa Brava and Dalí's museum in Figueres. The cathedral is active, and visiting pauses during services. The combined ticket with Sant Feliu is sold at the cathedral entrance.

Visiting Girona Cathedral: what to see

A cathedral has stood on this site since the eleventh century, and the present building was built mainly between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, combining a Romanesque cloister and bell tower, the Tower of Charlemagne, with a Gothic nave and a baroque facade. The nave, completed in the fifteenth century, is the widest Gothic nave in the world, about twenty-three metres across, without aisles, creating a vast, open space. The cloister, from the twelfth century, is decorated with carved capitals showing biblical scenes. The treasury holds the Tapestry of Creation, a Romanesque embroidery from the eleventh century showing God creating the world surrounded by the seasons and the winds, a unique masterpiece, and a Beatus manuscript from 975, an illuminated commentary on the Apocalypse.

The high altar has a silver altarpiece and a canopy. The cathedral's bell tower, known as the Tower of Charlemagne, is the oldest part of the building. The chapter house displays the treasury, including reliquaries, crosses and liturgical objects. The tomb of Ramon Berenguer II, count of Barcelona, is in the cathedral. The cloister's carved capitals include scenes from Genesis and the life of Christ. The baroque facade was completed in the eighteenth century. The high altar's silver altarpiece dates from the fourteenth century. The organ was restored in recent years. The ninety steps were built in the seventeenth century.

Girona Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

The cathedral is open daily, with shorter hours on Sundays. Girona is busy in May during Temps de Flors, the flower festival, when the cathedral steps and courtyards are decorated with flowers, and the city is very crowded. Summer is warm, and autumn brings the Fires de Sant Narcís festival. Mornings are the quietest time to photograph the steps. Allow about an hour for the cathedral, cloister and treasury, and walk along the city walls, which start nearby. The Basilica of Sant Feliu, a short walk away, holds the tomb of Saint Narcissus and early Christian sarcophagi.