This weekend, coinciding with the final stretch of Temps de Flors, Montjuïc Castle in Girona received a floral offering. It was brought by the residents of this neighborhood, situated on a hill at the northern entrance of the city, far from the hustle and bustle of the center. They were not, however, to decorate and make it look nice, but rather an act of protest due to the poor condition of the fortress, as, although it is considered a cultural asset of national interest (BCIN), it is in a ruinous state: the stones are crumbling, weeds are growing, it is full of graffiti and dirt. Residents barely step foot there and it has become a meeting point for anti-social individuals.

One month before turning 75, and with 166 marathons on her strong legs, Quima Casas (Sant Martí Sacalm, 1951) continues running because she doesn't know how to “stay home sitting on the sofa watching television”. She has finished three marathons this year, although she no longer looks at the stopwatch, but rather follows her impulses trotting through the lush landscapes of Sant Feliu de Pallerols (Garrotxa), the town from which she has built one of the most unique careers in Catalan athletics.

New construction single-family homes, renovations and refurbishments in small towns in Empordà, near the Costa Brava. Mostly second homes for families from Barcelona. In keeping with the surroundings and made with local materials. This would be the most representative example of the award-winning architecture currently being produced in the Girona region. This is determined by the projects selected in the latest editions of the Girona Region Architecture Awards, organized by the Girona delegation of the Architects' Association of Catalonia (COAC).

Due to its proximity to France, with a long and deep-rooted tradition of second-hand markets, called flea markets or vide-greniers (attic clear-outs), the Empordà was a pioneer in Spain in organizing this type of market. One of the markets that attracts the most visitors today is held every Sunday in Verges. The secret to its success, according to its organizers, Montse and Marga, from the company 2_emes, is its strategic location, on a esplanade next to a privileged crossroads in the Empordà where the roads from Figueres and France, from Torroella de Montgrí and L'Estartit, and from La Bisbal, Girona and Barcelona converge. "It's a very busy thoroughfare all year round and over time it has become a mandatory stopping point for lovers of antique objects," says Marga. If, in addition to appreciating antiques, you are also fond of hearty breakfasts, you can regain your strength after rummaging through the junk in some of the bars and restaurants that, around the market, offer copious morning menus with pig's trotters, kidneys or snails, among other specialties. For those who prefer quality pastries, their breakfast spot is the bakery-patisserie Espai Dolç, located right in front of the market.

With the news of an agreement in extremis between workers and the garbage collection company to call off the strike that threatened to adorn the city with filth, Girona is finalizing preparations for the event that attracts more people to the city each year: Temps de Flors. A show born in the fifties and consolidated from 1979 onwards, which reaches a record number of visitors each edition. In 2025, it reached 400,000 in just nine days, in a city of just over 100,000 inhabitants.

How many lives can a book have? In Celrà, straddling Girona and Empordà, for 16 years a recycled reading project has been beating, giving a new life to more than 300,000 books. It shares space with the town library in the old Pagans Factory, a gem of Catalan industrial modernism converted into a municipal space, where the Town Hall coexists with the municipal swimming pools, the library, the music school, art school, and a civic center with a bar and restaurant, and a free indoor play area for children and babies.

A group of cypresses, the tree that symbolizes welcome and hospitality, surround the kiosk that functions as a bar in the Parc dels Jardins de les Pedreres in Girona. Josep Maria Esteban, who has worked there for ten years in a totally altruistic manner, mentions this symbolism of the cypresses because he believes that welcome is one of the essential characteristics of this urban park, which in past years the residents of the Pedreres-Fora Muralla neighborhood avoided due to its state of abandonment and which today they have made their own as a meeting place, for birthday celebrations, for snacks, for an outdoor classroom to practice Zumba or yoga, to walk pets there, and to celebrate spoken-word performances, among many other activities.  

Just as tourists climbing the shady Carrer de la Força in Girona for the first time are dazzled when the imposing cathedral appears before them with the scenic power of its baroque staircase, the audience and musicians entering the Las Vegas concert hall in Sant Feliu de Guíxols for the first time can hardly imagine that behind a modest facade will emerge a venue of retro majesty that will transport them to the 80s, with three well-stocked bars, tables and chairs with gold finishes arranged in an amphitheater, two indoor stages, and a pleasant terrace, all with a capacity for almost 900 people. Perhaps Luz de Gas (slightly smaller) is one of the few comparable venues, although due to its long history, some compare Las Vegas to Sala Apolo or La Paloma. The venue was built in 1962, but its origins date back to an open-air terrace dedicated to shows for the first tourists, which began operating in 1958 under the same name. The current director, Marc Recolons, goes even further back, explaining that his great-great-grandfather was a true pioneer of cinema in the Girona region, who in the early 20th century began showing silent films in a circus tent in Llagostera, with a projector bought from the Lumière brothers at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. The grandfather and two brothers later managed cinemas in various towns, including Calonge, Palamós, Palafrugell, and Figueres (here also named Las Vegas).

The brief curriculum he has written, of little more than four lines, does not do justice to his professional career in the performing arts world, which is immense, not only for the large number of roles he has played, but also for the quality of the plays in which he has acted and for the excellence with which he has interpreted each of the characters. "Pep Cruz is theatre made man," critics have said of him. "An actor who does everything well," has also been written about him. "The most popular and beloved of the actors in the Catalan theatrical Olympus," others have added. Born in Girona in 1948 and forged as an actor in this city, Pep Cruz has worked, as a performer, as a director, or as a screenwriter in almost a hundred plays, including Cyrano de Bergerac, King Lear, Forido Pensil or Infantillajes; he has acted in 8 musicals, including the successful Mar i Cel; in 8 television series, such as Ventdelplà and Oh! Europa, and in more than thirty films.

Pere Garcia (Girona, 1946) knows the secret to enduring 42 years in a job as a payroll specialist, a job he absolutely hated and which he readily describes as odious. He handled payroll and employment contracts. His was a particularly unpleasant department because "I always had to side with the company owner," and if an employee ever came to me, "I also had to agree with them and navigate any conflicts." He acknowledges that his loyalty to the company, which began at age 16 after finishing secondary school, was also largely due to the fact that the company, the prestigious Cànovas consultancy in Girona, "was excellent, as were the owners, department heads, and colleagues." However, the determining factor in his long tenure was his great passion for his leisure time: musicals.

Older people know it because it was a Marist Brothers seminary. Those born in the 80s and 90s know it because they went there for their first summer camps, sharpening tools and building huts like prehistoric people. And for the Catalan cultural scene, it has become, in the last eight years, an interdisciplinary meeting point. An intimate space where you can enjoy everything from performances by emerging groups, companies, and artists to shows by renowned musicians like Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Adrià Puntí, and the Vallès Symphony Orchestra.

He arrived in Girona during the height of the Spanish Transition, when the houses that are now picturesque along the Onyar River were gray and the city's "dump." Now, the city that welcomed him has just presented him with the most extensive exhibition ever held in the municipality: eight cultural venues are displaying more than 600 of his works, divided by theme. Vicente Huedo (Socuéllamos, Ciudad Real, 1955) is more than a painter: he is also a teacher of painters. Self-taught, and with a natural talent for drawing since childhood, he has taught at the La Mercè Cultural Center for 35 years. "Girona has given me back much more than I have given it," he explains enthusiastically about the exhibition. "It's a luxury in life to feel recognized and loved. After that, I don't think anything will change: it's food for thought, and I will continue creating my own work with the peace of mind of seeing my efforts rewarded."

From cross-border routes of the Republican exile, which follow the same paths that thousands of people took clandestinely on foot during the Civil War, from Portbou to Maçanet de CabrenysThere are a lot of them. Over the last few years, the Democratic Memorial of the Generalitat of Catalonia, in collaboration with the municipalities of Alt Empordà, has worked to study and properly mark them. However, a new one has now been added to the list, which, for the first time, has also been marked in collaboration with the Occitan administrations. The first democratic memory route carried out jointly with Northern Catalonia.

The internal squabble in ERC in Girona city This week adds a new chapter after months of power struggles and a few The primaries to choose the mayoral candidate are very close.which ended with Marc Puigtió, former mayor of Sant Julià de Ramis and an ally of Oriol Junqueras, winning by a single vote. The local executive committee of the Republicans just submitted its resignation this Monday to prevent the motion of no confidence presented in January by the only member of the leadership aligned with Puigtió from succeeding. In a joint statement, the now-former executive committee asserts that it is resigning "due to the lack of democratic guarantees" and because it refuses to legitimize practices that it "believes are contrary to the party's values."

They are not served drinksbut drinks. It does not have kitchenbut of food. Customers will be able to enjoy good music, not of musicand they'll find good vibes instead of vibesWith this declaration of intent, the new Soul is being announced on social media. This establishment, which opened its doors last Saturday near Girona's Barri Vell (Old Quarter), aims to differentiate itself from the numerous Anglophile establishments catering to the city's cycling community that have recently sprung up, despite its name and the fact that it's run by an Irishman, Steve Rigney. And it's precisely these local customers that Soul hopes to attract. The establishment is full of nods to these customers: a large lithograph of Saint George slaying the dragon on the wall, figurines of caganers (traditional Catalan defecators) hanging above the restroom door, locally sourced craft beers, sandwiches made with products bought from the butcher shop across the street, and a sign in Catalan inviting customers in: "Come on in."

In a global context marked by the erosion of rights, a means of transport like the bicycle has become, more than ever, an ideological symbol. Consequently, political polarization directly impacts decisions regarding sustainable mobility. The 2023 municipal elections marked a turning point in many cities: the arrival of new governments has influenced the management of bike lanes, often citing arguments of safety or freedom to move around by car. We have seen this in Castelldefels, Palma, Elche, Valladolid, and Logroño, and Lisbon has drawn attention for impounding bicycles parked in public spaces. At the same time, in Barcelona, ​​the socialist government of Jaume Collboni has maintained the infrastructure but reduced the push for new traffic-calming measures. In Girona, however, the dynamic is different. It has become established in the last decade as the cycling capital of southern Europe, and businesses linked to the sector have multiplied almost fivefold. If at the beginning of 2014 there were only eight cycling shops In the city, there are currently 41. The bicycle has also become an economic and tourist engine: if in Barcelonaexpanded He lives in a rented apartment costing over 2,000 euros and drinks specialty coffees costing 5 euros; in Girona he is accompanied by a high-end road or gravel bike and equipment worth over 4,000 euros.

The Girona City Council wants to limit the granting of licenses for new businesses related to cycling. Cycle tourism is thriving. an extraordinary boom in the city, especially in the Barri Vell, where in recent years, every time an iconic business closes, a new one opens a new store linked to high-end cyclingDesigned to attract primarily foreign customers.

Taking responsibility for a specific section of the coastal path, inspecting it regularly, and reporting any illegal closures or deterioration that impedes access. This is the mission that SOS Costa Brava wants to entrust to the future "godparents" of the coastal paths, a new role with which the environmental organization intends to strengthen the monitoring of these historic routes along the sea and guarantee the public's right to walk freely and without obstacles.

The other day Llibori died, an essential presence who gave character and pride to Sant Feliu. I didn't know him personally, but I stumbled across his tall, paradoxically unassuming figure in the street, with his long, straight hair and mustache. It was more than just seeing the great singer of Quercus, the rock band that played "rock music," founder of the fondly remembered Colla Jacomet, and capable of composing so much. Old fisherman as The Last Habanerawhich it truly was. He sang in Velvet's dark, ironic, and radical style.Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance", was introduced by Jordi Riera, another great singer from Colla Jacomet.

The vast warehouse of Airearte, in Sant Jordi Desvalls, is like an expanding continent, capable of absorbing everything that boils in Lluís Mohedano's mind. A space that grows like one of the giant inflatables that have allowed its creator to literally live off the air for forty years. The building, a former onion and potato drying facility, has become over time an artifact difficult to classify: an art gallery, a concert hall, a stage for theater, dance, and poetry. coworking It's an improvised space for workshops and, at the same time, a bar where cocktails and small plates mingle with relaxed conversations. Initially, it only opened occasionally, coinciding with exhibitions, but since last summer, now with a bar license, it's open every day and hopes that a growing clientele will validate its original and constantly evolving concept.