Girona

Sometimes you think you know a place and then one day you realize that you really don’t know anything about it at all.

Like Girona. I’ve been here several times. The Onyar river runs though it, separating the old city from the new. It's generally a genteel, wealthy town with reasonable, well-educated people.

It has an old wall dating back to the 9th century, which was meant to keep invaders away. But as we know, walls don’t really work and the invaders came anyway. Including from France, which you can see in the distance.

I thought I had a handle on the place. But then on this trip I noticed this baffling sign. Something climbing something involving something that is prohibited. What could it possibly mean?

Zoom out and there’s an actual figure of something climbing something. What could that second thing mean? Turns out the “thing” is a lion climbing a pole and that people would kiss the ass of the lion to ensure that they would come back to Girona some day. Almost nothing could diminish the tourists’ desire to kiss the lion’s ass, including the fact that someone died a few years ago after falling off the ladder he climbed to get his face close enough to the ass (a writing “first” for me). But COVID finally made a difference. After determining that multiple strangers putting their mouths on the same ass (sorry) could spread the virus, kissing the ass was outlawed. Thus the puzzling sign.

Then this, which just seemed wrong in so many ways. 

Zoom out again, and it turns out that it’s not only a product; it’s the name of the entire business. What are people here thinking?

Then we had a delightful dinner at a restaurant that had menus only in Catalan, a language none of us spoke or could even guess at. And the bill was written in a secret code. That’s when I realized I really don’t know Girona at all.