Girona, Spain Oct 24

 Girona is where Nachmanides, a.k.a., Moses ben Nachman, a.k.a.,  RanBAN lived for most of his life.  It is about 40 miles northeast of Barcelona.

The first image shows George (right) and Ann (light green shirt) in foreground and the tower of the Cathedral of Girona in the background. The Cathedral was built in the 15th century so it postdates the time of Nachmanides.


The second image shows a monument to cork. The Catalan cork research institute is near Girona as is a cork manufacturing plant (cork is grown mainly in Portugal - there is a separate post in this blog on the subject of the cork industry). 

The third image shows George examining a statue of something that looks like a weasel but people say it is a lion. The statue dates only from 1986 but it replaced an earlier similar statue of unknown date. A local legend is that if you kiss the lion (or whatever it is) you will come back to Girona. A similar local legend is

"No pot ser veí de Girona qui no faci un petó al cul de la lleona"
"you can’t be resident in Girona until you’ve kissed the backside of the lioness"

  The fourth picture shows people in our tour group looking at a street with a Jewish name. This, plus some tombstones, is pretty much all that is left of what was once about 1000 Jews in a town of 10,000. Old Girona is well preserved. This is partly because several times the area was devastated by the plague and there wasn't much pressure to tear down old houses to build bigger ones. 

However, there is no house that is identified as RanBAN's house and no synagogue identified as RanBAN's synagogue. RanBAN lived in Girona for most of his life and it was, apparently, pretty tranquil. The unfortunately exciting part of his life began after he became the chief rabbi of Barcelona at about the age of 56 (~1250CE). The image is from wikipedia. It is early 20th century painting.

  
 The woman in the fifth picture is examining some art at the Jewish museum in Girona.

 The sixth image shows Ann and Beth in a garden at the Jewish Museum. Note the flower - its real.

The seventh picture shows how people identify homes formerly lived in by Jews. 

One way is to look for an indentation in the doorway frame that would be where the mezuzah would have been.