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Girona and the 3rd Caixa Sabadell Etnival

Now let’s get one thing straight: Girona is a city in Catalonia. It is not in Italy – if you think that, you’re crossing Genoa and Verona and you’re getting Gerona (sic).

J and I visited Girona last week, right before my 28th birthday, for the 3rd Caixa Sabadell Etnival, a free world music mini-festival held in the city.

Our sojourn was a double-header: part city visit, part gig trip.

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Girona

 

3rd Caixa Sabadell Etnival 2007

Seeing Girona was only one half of the reason J and I were in this attractive city.

The Catalan savings bank Caixa Sabadell has organised a small, free world music festival in Girona for the last couple of years.

The festival is called the Caixa Sabadell Etnival and took place over three days in June, this being the third edition, held in the Parc de les Ribes del Ter between the River Ter and the fringe of the city’s Fontajau district.

Information about the Etnival was scarce apart from a nice website put up by the Caixa Sabadell, which was still pretty helpful despite my Latin-informed appreciation of Castilian Spanish and guess-standard Catalan.

Despite two editions of the Etnival in 2005 and 2006, nobody seems to have written on the subject at any length. So I hope this will set an English language precedent: we were there in 2007!

Of the bands and artists billed to appear, we caught up with Macaco and 08001 on the Friday night.

On the long, hot Saturday afternoon, we enjoyed an upbeat set from Gertrudis and the trancy, ethnic Nómhadas before retiring like softies for a bit of a siesta.

On our return in the evening, there were two ripping sets from the marvellous Patriarcas de la Rumba and Sargento Garcia (more commonly known as Sergent Garcia in his native France).

We rounded off Sunday with the highlight of the weekend, and the main driver behind why we were there in the first place: the legendary Toumani Diabaté and the Symmetric Orchestra, making their appearance in the middle of a long European tour whose UK dates are all somewhat difficult to reach for us.

Actually seeing Toumani in Catalonia was much easier, believe me!

The Etnival was quite well attended, though numbers never swelled to completely fill the available area.

However whilst the crowds were therefore relatively small (with the notable exception of the Macaco appearance on Friday night), it did mean that the queues for the bar and toilets were mercifully short.

It could take a few more years and the introduction of a bit of vegetarian catering before the Etnival establishes itself enough to attract a bigger crowd.

Confidence does seem to be growing though: this year’s headliners warranted much bigger type sizes on the poster!

Of course, it would also be great to see the continuing development of the Etnival as a free event. Let’s hope the Caixa Sabadell continues to back it.

The city

Since that champion of cheapness Ryanair began flying to Girona, the city’s small airport some way out of town has swollen to accommodate close to 4 million passengers per year, an 800% increase in the last decade.

Yet few of these passengers actually visit Girona itself. To some, you see, the airport is known as “Girona Costa Brava” whilst to others it’s more familiar as “Girona Barcelona”. And it’s one of these ‘bigger’ attractions for which most passengers are bound once they metamorphose like some indelicate breed of butterfly into Brits abroad.

Just a small number of inquisitive travellers crosses over to the solitary, lonely bus stop opposite those signed for Lloret De Mar and Barcelona. From this joyless outpost the intrepid head downtown.

What these chancers will discover is an extraordinarily beautiful medieval city, compact and peaceful and full of wonderful ice creams in all flavours.

Occasionally the odd loudmouth ignoramus and three generations of his rolled gold Essex dynasty rumbles in for a bit of culcha before the haul home – souring your quiet tapas lunch on the Plaça de l’Independencia – but such cretinous infestations are thankfully rare.

In common with most great Iberian cities, Girona’s long history is tied to religion and siege. Needless to say, the Romans woz ere first, replaced by the Moors and then a co-existing Christian and Jewish population from the early tenth century onwards.

The Jewish enclave in the city was particularly well established, becoming a centre for the study of Kabbala, before the Jews were expelled in the late 15th century by the Catholic kings. The Jewish influence is still in evidence today throughout that part of town known as the Call.

Girona is one of those cities in which every corner you turn gives way to some new and frequently unusual sight.

From finely crafted door handles to lavish funeral parlours, from creepy shop displays to colourful markets, from trompes l’oeil to trainers hanging from wires, Girona is chock full of profound, fleeting images.

Contrasting with the dry plains of Castile and the hot mountains and plateaux of the Sierra Nevada, Catalonia is a green region in the shadow of the Pyrenees.

In Girona, there are several beautiful gardens, including the Alemanys and the Parc de la Devesa, in which a long avenue of plane trees called the Plaça de les Botxes can be found. There was an impressive range of restaurants. J and I counted Chinese, Indian, Thai, French, Basque, Catalan and even that rarest of exotic cuisines in Iberia: vegetarian.

So next time you’re passing by on your way to Barca or the Costas, why not drop in on Girona?