They have made a significant contribution, they have a powerful, inspiring, and sometimes little-known story. They all share the commonality of being from the Girona region—or living there—and they have appeared in the pages of the newspaper, recognized by readers, making their articles the most read of the day. They are the 25 people from Girona who have shaped our 2025 and who also The first ARA awards have been presented in Girona, those of the clever foxWe didn't want to award celebrities who would give visibility to the awards, but rather for the awards themselves to do the work. celebrities inconspicuous characters. In 2023 We begin this compilation with 23 names, and In 2024 we chose the Girona natives as the revelationSince then, the jury has been the readers.

The sixth edition of the Vallviva festival is the earliest to go on sale in advance. Tickets for this charity festival, which will take place from July 8th to 12th, 2026, have been available since last Friday. The lineup includes Antonio Orozco, Ana Torroja, the Garrotxa-based group Terapia de Shock, and Mare Mundi – the Cobla i Corda de Catalunya Symphony Orchestra, the Puig-reig Polyphonic Choir, and several other artists. "On Wednesday we'll have the Cobla i Corda de Catalunya Symphony Orchestra; on Thursday, Antonio Orozco; on Friday, Terapia de Shock; and on Saturday, Ana Torroja, singing current hits and Mecano songs," said Quim Morera, president of the Vallviva Foundation.

The town of Barcarès, in Roussillon, Northern Catalonia, has made a name for itself both in France and in the southern Albera region for its Christmas theme park, which is celebrating its 26th edition this year. Last year, despite a fire just days before the opening and other weather-related incidents, it nearly attracted a million visitors, and in 2023 it registered even more, close to 1.6 million. However, at the beginning of October, it was far from certain that the Barcarès Christmas Village would be held again this year. "Last year was very complicated, and this year we had no intention of doing it. We had the fire, the windstorm, the rain, the mayor also has some political and legal complications, and we need about 150 people to work here, and in a small town that's not easy to find. All of this meant that we didn't want to do it this year," explains Michel Sit.

The Cacau i Negritud collective, which brings together "Black people from all the Girona regions united in our Blackness to combat racism," as they define themselves, is demanding that the Girona City Council ensure that no one wears blackface in the 2026 Three Kings Parade. "What we want is for no one to wear blackface. If they can't find enough Black people, then let there be white people in King Balthazar's entourage, nothing would happen, and if they want to wear makeup, they can wear whatever they want, even unicorns. But we believe that Blackness is not a costume," they wrote on January 5th. an article to the ARA in this regard.

The guided tour The origins of LGBTQIA+ activism in Girona It premiered last Monday as part of the Girona fair program, but it's an activity that will continue independently of the fairs, with the intention of holding it four times a year. The next tour is scheduled for Saturday, November 29th at 11:00 AM; all places are already reserved and there's a waiting list. Given the success of the first two tours, four visits a year might not be enough.

On August 27th, five pro-Palestinian activists from Alt Empordà blocked the Israeli team participating in the Vuelta a España. It happened during a team time trial in Figueres and was the first in a series of protests against the presence of the Israel Premier Tech team in the race, actions that continued at every stage until the final day. "When we found out the Vuelta was coming, we decided to take some completely peaceful action, and luckily in Figueres it was a team time trial. That made it very easy for us to block only the Zionist team, the Israeli team. We didn't want to cause any problems for the cyclists, Oliver, or anyone else," explains the young activist, who has been involved in various causes for many years. The action, however, became the spark for a widespread protest throughout the country. It ended up paralyzing the entry of the Vuelta into MadridBut in practical terms, the Figueres blockade is currently the only boycott against the Israeli team's participation that the Vuelta a España organizers have reported. It resulted in one arrest: that of Esteve Robleda i Sastre, an educational psychologist. In a city with few demonstrations, dozens of people gathered in front of the Mossos d'Esquadra police station in the capital of the Alt Empordà region to demand his release. On Saturday, a fundraising event for Palestine was held in Figueres, both in case the complaint ends up in court and to support the Palestinian people. It was also an opportunity to learn firsthand how the protest against the Israel Premier Tech team's participation in the cycling competition was organized.

The trees have begun to turn yellow, the leaves are falling, the Indian summer of Sant Martí is saying goodbye, and Girona already has the scent of the fairs. The San Narciso festival. This year they claim to be a benchmark brand which aims to become one of the Principality's great popular culture festivals, on par with the Patum in Berga, the Santas in Mataró, Santa Tecla in Tarragona, and La Mercè in Barcelona. That's why the Fairs have a new logo and, for the first time, merchandising, with the continued desire for them to be much more than strolling among the attractions in the Devesa and having a drink at the concerts in the stalls at the Copa.

On October 20, 1879, Official Gazette of the Province (BOP) of Girona issued a statement certifying the entry of phylloxera into the Principality from France. The statement read: "Having carried out the optional inspection provided for in Article 7 of the Law of 30 July 1879, this commission has agreed to declare that a vineyard located in the Cuello de Fornells in the municipal district of Rabós has been invaded by phylloxera and to make said declaration public.Last June, Jordi Esteve, a local winemaker, installed a memorial sculpture in his winery—the first in Alt Empordà—commemorating this historic event. It will be inaugurated next Sunday during the Alberes Free Wine Fair, known as Contraban.

The arrival of the National Regrouping (RN) party to power in the Perpignan city council in 2020 sparked excitement as to how the far-right party would govern a city with more than 100,000 inhabitants and, furthermore, the capital of a department, two characteristics that make Perpignan unique in France. A city test, as some French media defined it, although there was already the example of Besiers –with around 80,000 inhabitants–, where RN came to power in 2014 and continues to do so after also winning the 2020 municipal elections.

After a successful first edition, with 70 exhibitors and more than 7,000 visitors, the Perpignan Agricultural Festival returns this weekend with a more ambitious second edition. It will take place from October 10th to 12th, with more than 100 exhibitors, four invited departments, and more than 50 animals. This event highlights sustainable agriculture, gastronomy, and innovation in Northern Catalonia and this year opens in Occitania. "There were visitors who came with their families, others just to eat, and professionals also came. Most of the visitors were from the same department, but some came from further afield, from within the region and even from Southern Catalonia. Some exhibitors had to restock up on supplies up to twice during the weekend," recalled Elise Borieux, director of this second edition.

Since the start of the tourist season, three Girona campsites have participated in the Smart Camp project, a pilot project involving the installation of sensors and the application of an artificial intelligence system to better digitize and connect the establishments. The experience has allowed them to increase security, improve the customer experience, and become more efficient in certain processes.

On September 15, Girona's low-emission zone (LEZ) will come into effect. The perimeter of the LEZ extends from Devesa Park to Carrer Emili Grahit, and from Carrer del Riu Güell to Carrer del Carme and the Barri Vell neighborhood. Entrances to the restricted area will be marked with signs, and photo surveillance cameras have also been installed. Restricted hours will be from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. Outside of these hours, all vehicles may circulate without exception on weekends and midweek holidays. The LEZ control system in Girona uses 20 cameras located at 13 points along public roads in the city. These cameras take photographs of all vehicles that do not have an environmental sticker and that have not been previously authorized. The photographs of vehicles without an environmental sticker and unauthorized vehicles are sent to a database of the Barcelona Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM), which performs two independent checks to ensure the license plate is correctly read.

The Cerdanya Film Festival (CFF) is halfway through its 16th edition, a longer edition than usual, since It started on July 29 and will close on August 17."It's something extraordinary that we won't be doing anymore because this is an emergency format," explains Jordi Forcada, the festival's director. "The cinema in Puigcerdà closed, and the City Council said they didn't have the budget to organize activities. I asked them if they hadn't planned anything, how about programming a few more films, and they said yes."

With The unfixing, by Emmy-winning director Nicole Betancourt, present at the premiere, opened the 16th edition of the Cerdanya Film Festival (CFF). The unfixing It premiered at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in the Czech Republic and won the Audience Award at the Vermont Film & Folklore Festival. The documentary offers an intimate and poetic look at grief and healing as gateways to a new way of seeing and experiencing the world, and also reflects on climate change and the state of the planet. It is a co-production between the United States and Spain, by the Girona-based production company Horizontal Films Media. It was filmed over eight years in the United States, Spain, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, with post-production completed entirely in Barcelona.

Maria Rosa López is one of the most punctual customers at the Verges market. Before eight in the morning, she's already waiting for the doors of El Café de la Plaza to open so she can take a sandwich to one of the stallholders. "The trust between vendor and customer is one of the markets' strengths; here we all know each other, we greet each other, and we catch up," López acknowledges. Verges is an example of the continued existence of small-town markets, with five or six stalls where one day a week you can find fruit, vegetables, clothing, or shoes. These types of markets are threatened by a lack of generational relevance, counterfeit products, government regulations, and a lifestyle that prevents younger generations from going shopping in the morning.

Girona faces the mid-term of a tripartite government, unprecedented in its history, formed by Guanyem, Junts, and Esquerra (Republican Left), with a particularly hot topic on the table: a change in the waste collection model. The daily recycling schedule, with the introduction of so-called smart containers, is unanimously considered the worst of Mayor Lluc Salellas's first two years in office, according to the eight sector representatives interviewed by ARA.

This is the fifth edition of the Vallviva festival and the first without the physical presence of Eudald Morera, who passed away last November at the age of 59. The promoter decided to organize the festival after being diagnosed with advanced cancer. "It's a festival born from the heart and gratitude. I wanted to thank life and the people for having been privileged to have been born where I was born and to have lived where I live. The festival has given me life," he told ARA in June two years ago. He pulled it off against his family's advice, who believed that what she had to do at the time was worry about her health. But when the family understood her absolute determination to pull off the festival two months later, from the very beginning, her eldest daughter, Mireia, was unconditionally by her side—as was the rest of the family—and now, at 27, she is the one who follows in her footsteps.

In the winter of 1980-1981, a group of founding parents from La Bressola split off to create a school that would teach in Catalan and French from kindergarten to age 6. While we were preparing to open an Arrels school in Perpignan, the opportunity to create this radio station arose. Nothing was planned, and we launched into the adventure of creating this radio station before the school opened. We were preparing for the arrival of a child and found ourselves in the arms of a collaborator of La Bressola for four years. The opportunity Manzanares mentions came through a state law of May 1981 that allowed the creation of associative radio stations in France. They founded Radio Arrels, which began broadcasting on the 28th of that same month of May.

Xasteros House, designed in 1969 by the visionary Greek architect Nikolaos Xasteros, arrived at the Terra Remota winery in Sant Climent Sescebes in May 2023 and quickly became the centerpiece of the 54-hectare estate. The winery's owners, French couple Emma and Marc Bournazeau, are keen on architecture, and there's always an experimental house on display on their estate. Xasteros House is a work inspired by the space age—which is why it's also known as "the UFO house," as it evokes a spaceship—and is one of the jewels of 20th-century prefabricated architecture. Until Brad Pitt acquired it in the middle of last year, it was owned by French collector and gallery owner Clément Cividino, who rescued it from a town near Athens and restored it. Apparently, the discovery of the Xasteros House was something "uncommon" that a group of Greek architects discovered about seventeen years ago in the middle of a forest in Athens, where the structure was abandoned.

More than 70 years have passed since businessman Juan Farré hosted a group of foreign tourists on his land in La Fosca in the summer of 1953. This is one of the first three campsites in the country, and the only one still open today.