The Call of Girona at Dusk
A medieval Jewish quarter that most people cross in fifteen minutes.
Girona is a small city in northern Catalonia that most travellers see between Barcelona and the coast, usually as a half day stop. The main draw is the color-washed houses along the Onyar river and the cathedral steps that briefly featured in a certain television series. Behind the cathedral, however, sits the Call, the medieval Jewish quarter, and it deserves an evening rather than a photograph.
Walking the Call
The Call was one of the largest Jewish communities in medieval Spain until the expulsion in 1492. Its street plan has changed very little in the six centuries since. The Carrer de la Força runs the length of it, and the smaller alleys that branch off, some barely wide enough for a person, still lead into small courtyards that were originally shared laundries and wells.
Do this walk in the last hour before sunset. The stone is a warm sandstone that holds light, and the lanterns along the walls come on in a slow sequence, one at a time, as the sky above the alleys turns cobalt.
The Museum of Jewish History
In the middle of the Call, the Museu d'Història dels Jueus occupies part of a former synagogue complex. The building itself is worth the entry: bare stone rooms with high ceilings and small windows, one of them opening onto a well-preserved mikveh, or ritual bath, only rediscovered in the 1980s.
Give it an hour. The permanent exhibition is small but well curated, with medieval Hebrew manuscripts and a few tombstones from the community's cemetery on Montjuïc hill, uncovered during construction in the twentieth century.
Where to eat
For dinner, walk five minutes to Cal Ros, a small restaurant tucked into a lane below the cathedral. The menu is Catalan and short, and the interior is a set of low vaulted rooms that used to be part of a wine cellar. Order the arròs de muntanya, a mountain rice with rabbit and mushrooms.
Afterward, walk back up to the cathedral steps. At ten in the evening they are usually empty except for a few locals sitting on the top step. From there, the whole old city drops away below in shades of ochre.
Practical notes
- The Call is a small area. Wear soft-soled shoes; some of the stones are polished slick.
- The museum closes at six most days. Check winter hours in advance.
- Restaurants in Girona open late by northern-European standards; nine in the evening is normal.
- Trains from Barcelona Sants take thirty eight minutes on the AVE.
Girona's old city gets an hour of most travellers' time. The Call, walked slowly at dusk, is worth an evening on its own.
