Catalonia
Girona, the Costa Brava and the hinterland.
Girona is the city Barcelona visitors skip on their way to the Costa Brava. Those who stop find an old town of stone, a cathedral with the widest Gothic nave in the world, a Jewish quarter 600 years old, and the Onyar with its colourful houses that appear in every photo because they deserve to.
And then the Rocas. Three brothers, a restaurant repeatedly voted the best in the world — El Celler de Can Roca — and a city that has thereby become a destination for people who travel for food.
The hinterland — Empordà, Garrotxa — is Catalonia in its purest form: volcanic hills, stone villages, Dalí in Figueres, the coves of the Costa Brava half an hour away.
Girona is a small town that thinks big. Two days are enough; three are better.
We send people to Girona who have already seen Barcelona and now want to see Catalonia properly. Hotel Casa Cacao is the Rocas' house on Plaça Catalunya: 15 rooms above Jordi Roca's chocolate workshop, with a rooftop overlooking the old town. You stay with the people who defined the city's food. Come in May for the flower festival, when the old town is planted, or in October. Book the Celler a year ahead — or don't, and go to the bars along the Rambla instead.
