Barri Vell & the Coloured Houses of the Onyar
The row of ochre, terracotta, dusty-pink and sage-green houses cantilevered over the Riu Onyar is Girona's most photographed image, and it looks even better in person than in any postcard. The Barri Vell (old town) behind those façades is a neighbourhood still genuinely lived in, full of indie bookshops, neighbourhood bars and quiet plazas where locals linger over vermouth.
The Famous Riverside Façades
The best vantage point is from Pont de Pedra, the main stone bridge connecting the old and new town, where the full row of coloured houses reflects in the slow-moving river below. Early morning light hits the façades from the east and turns them luminous; blue-hour reflections at dusk are equally spectacular.
A lesser-known but even better angle is from the iron footbridge Pont de les Peixateries Velles, designed by Gustave Eiffel's company in 1877. Standing mid-bridge with a wide-angle lens (or just your phone) frames the cathedral looming above the coloured houses in a single shot.
Life Inside the Old Town
Carrer de l'Argenteria, running parallel to the river on the old-town side, is lined with independent restaurants and wine bars that fill up on weekend evenings with a mix of locals and visitors. Duck into Plaça del Vi, the handsome neoclassical square just inland, where the city hall stands and café terraces spill across the cobblestones.
The Barri Vell rewards slow wandering: look for the 12th-century Arab Baths (Banys Àrabs) on Carrer de Ferran el Catòlic, a remarkably well-preserved Romanesque bathhouse that most visitors walk straight past.
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