Sarah doesn’t always run. When she does, you pick a good one.
We’d already spent days on foot in Girona by this point — the old town, the walls, the Jewish quarter, the coloured houses from the bridge. This was something different. Trainers on, out of the door before the heat got serious, no particular plan beyond following the river and seeing where it took us.
It took us a good long way.
Sarah running through the old town. Morning light. Before the heat.
Along the Onyar
The route out of the centre is easy to find — the river does the work. We dropped down to the path and followed the Onyar north, away from the tourist end of the city and into something quieter. The water was low and clear and absolutely full of life. Huge fish holding position in the current, ducks going about their business with complete indifference to anyone passing. We stopped more than once just to watch.
It was clean in a way that feels deliberate. Calm in a way that takes a moment to settle into.
The Onyar from the riverside path. Cathedral towers in the distance. Minnie Mouse on the wall around the corner.
Riverside graffiti. Cartoon characters, vivid red. Not what you expect on a quiet river loop.
Off road
Before you reach the big bridge the path gets scrappy — more track than promenade, a bit overgrown at the edges. We didn’t mind. It felt like the city had stopped performing and was just existing for a moment. The mountains appeared properly here, behind the old iron bridge, the kind of view that stops a conversation mid-sentence.
We stood on the bridge and looked back the way we’d come. The cathedral towers above the treeline. The river straight and flat. The hill settlements on the far bank catching the morning sun.
The river looking back toward the city. The old iron bridge. Mountains just visible beyond.
The Pont de la Barca. Corten steel arch. Not subtle. Not meant to be.
Back through the centre
Coming back in through the old town on foot rather than on a walk has a different quality. The streets are the same — narrow, stone, cool in the shadow — but you’re moving through them differently. We ran the length of one of the main shopping streets, still quiet at that hour, and out onto the Rambla where the café terraces were just beginning to fill up. The plane trees doing their job. The city waking up around us.
It felt earned.
The Rambla de la Llibertat. Morning. The café chairs filling slowly.
Old town street. Ochre walls, Girona flags, nobody rushing.
A city that runs
Girona is genuinely built for this. The river loop is natural, flat, and long enough to be satisfying without needing to plan it. The old town threads in easily at either end. There’s enough to stop and look at that the pace takes care of itself, which suits us both.
We finished in just under fifty minutes with a conversation that had barely paused. There’s a particular kind of run where the talking and the moving feel like the same thing. This was one of those.
The cannon in the park by the sports ground was a nice detail on the way back. We still don’t entirely know what it was doing there.
Old cannon. Park near the sports ground. Context unknown.
Girona, Catalonia — 4.45 miles — 48m 30s — 53ft elevation — 10:53 /mi