Gustav Eiffel’s Pont de le Peixateries Velles over Onyar river. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Updated June 6, 2024
The history of Girona, Spain, is as colorful as the ocher and coral-toned buildings lining the banks of the Onyar river flowing through this ancient city.
Bursting with historical sites, Girona is just a 40-minute express train ride from Barcelona, making it a great day trip. Gustave Eiffel built a bridge in this city ten years before designing his eponymous tower in Paris. Jews and Arabs once lived in harmony within the city’s medieval walls, and legendary Tour du Monde cyclists take advantage of Girona’s varied terrain and mild weather to train there.
Citywide Site-Specific Botanical Art Installations
Every May, the city’s Temps de Flors festival turns Girona into a vibrant and sprawling outdoor botanical art experience. The week-long event blends horticulture and art, featuring site-specific installations created mainly of flowers and plants.
Flowers carpet the back side of Sant Filiu during the annual Temps de Flors festival. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Institute la Garrotya created these pallets filled with flowers on the steps of La Pera. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
More Than 100 Works of Botanical Art
In its 61st year, the Temps de Flors festival was launched in 1955 as a floral exhibition in the church of Sant Domènec. It has since evolved into a citywide event with more than 100 impressive works of botanical-inspired art occupying Girona’s major monuments, courtyards, and private spaces not normally open to the public.
Eiffel’s Pont de le Peixateries Velles connects the new and old parts of the city. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Lymbus: An Art Installation and Multi-Media Performance
I was honored to spend my first week in town collaborating with talented Girona and Barcelona-based landscape artists Marc Grañén and Jordi Sanchez Sanmiguel to create Lymbus, a botanical art installation composed of hundreds of plants that filled the centuries-old steps of Girona’s oldest church, the Basilica Sant Feliu.
DJs spinning sounds each evening at 6 pm for Lymbus on the steps of Sant Filiu. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Artisans from Girona-based Pont de Querós worked with us to create arches woven from live willow plants. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
An artistic narrative about the connection between human beings and nature, Lymbus –an alternative form of the word ‘limbus’ whose c. 1300 meaning referred to the region on the border of Hell–was a commentary on the climate crisis and the dire need for human beings to reconnect with nature’s life cycle. After the festival, we donated all the plants to local schools and regional parks.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Plants, Performers, and Pyrotechnics
For the festival’s opening night, Grañén, in collaboration with Joan Font, Director of the Barcelona theater group Comediants, co-produced a spectacular 45-minute open-air multi-media sound and light show featuring all of the installation’s gardeners and designers. A large crowd gathered in the church square as we paraded with stilt walkers carrying sparklers, flares, and fire. Electronic music and brightly colored lighting provided the backdrop for the event, which opened with a prima donna performing a live opera aria of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah from the cathedral’s bell tower.
Raising the massive two-ton tree. Photo: Marc Grañén and Comediants.
Raising a Two-Ton Tree
As a metaphor for the collective effort required to save our planet, our team of 30 used sheer human strength, rope, and thick wooden rods to raise a two-ton tree that a crane had lowered onto the cathedral stair landing.
Filling the Plaça Sant Feliu and beyond, an audience of over 2500 viewed the extravaganza, culminating in a fireworks display that lit up the sky above the cathedral spire.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Streets bloom with color during Temps de Flors. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
A mannequin of flowers and plants at a shop entrance. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Citywide Plant and Floral-Inspired Culinary Art and Decor
Nearly all of Girona participates in the festival: shop owners dress up their storefronts and windows with floral-inspired decor, and little botanical surprises appear in hidden corners and on residential balconies throughout the town. During the festival, many restaurants offer special Gastroflors menus with unusual dishes of edible art prepared using flowers and plants.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Local merchants dress up their shop windows. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Restaurant La Penyora’s assemblage of plates and plants. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Repurposed plastic bottles turned into planters on pipes throughout the city. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Furniture restoration shop’s planter from a recycled chest of drawers. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
In front of a home decor shop. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Impromptu lighting fixture hanging from a recycled wood branch. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Upholsterer’s potted flowers are constructed from textiles. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Loving this floral-adorned scooter. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
My Temps de Flors Favorite Picks
We were not the only group working long hours until the festival’s opening day, and I enjoyed watching the creativity unfold as others prepared and built their installations throughout the city. Here are some of my favorites:
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Vines draped elegantly around a fountain’s arch on a street in Bari Vell, by the Associaciò Floral de Girona. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
In front of Girona City Hall, hanging pieces were planted by vocational trade students. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Making hay in a courtyard at Plaça Bell-Lloc with this bicycle spray-painted metallic gold. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Little surprises at every turn off the Plaça Bell-LLoc, Travesia Auriga. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Sitting pretty outside Casino Girona. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Kokedama Stretching the Length of the Eiffel Bridge
Eiffel’s circa 1877 iron bridge, Pont de les Peixateries Velles aka El Pont de Ferro (ferro means iron), stands at the confluence of four rivers, one of the 11 bridges connecting Girona’s eastern ancient walled city with its newer western side. It is one of Girona’s semi-secret historical highlights as most tourists do not know Eiffel built a bridge in Girona, and therefore a special honor for those assigned to create an installation there.
I wonder what Gustav Eiffel would have thought of the spectacular series of hanging plants flanking the sides of his bridge. In their interpretation of traditional Japanese kokedama, floral artists from Rosa Valls Formació suspended flowing kokedama arrangements embellished with raffia from each side of the bridge.
Eiffel’s Pont de le Peixateries Velles. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Kokedama, a variation of bonsai often called “string gardens,” are balls of peat moss-covered Akadama soil substrate from which an ornamental plant grows. With the cascading raffia floating softly in the breeze like dancing plants, the installation complemented the bridge’s geometric lines and symmetry while respecting the integrity of Eiffel’s design.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Floral Curtain Suspended from Gomez Bridge
From the center of another bridge, the Pont de la Princesa, aka Gomez Bridge, artists suspended a simple but stunning curtain of plants attached to corrugated iron bars.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Art i Argent’s hydrangeas and hanging foil disks rose up the steps of Carrer de Miquel Oliva i Prat.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Little bouquet surprise floating among the gold disks. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
In the Passeig Arqueològic, a taste of lime blossom tea and yours truly posing with teacup and teabag to demo the scale…
Yours truly. My cup runneth over. Photo: Ariadna Sicilia.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Mistos (matches) at Riu Galligants: the “flame” is a red plant I could not identify. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Colorful umbrellas and paper flowers hanging from above and down the length of the street. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Plant-filled hollowed log and potted plants in a courtyard at Plaça Bell-LLoc, Travesia Auriga. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Chalkboard invited visitors to create an interactive piece of floral-inspired artwork. Plaça Bell-LLoc, Travesia Auriga. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Cinematic Clematis
As though they were long overgrown from the interior to exterior, clusters of dried branches protruded from the windows in front of the Antic Cinema Modern, a former movie theater a short walk from Girona’s town hall. In an installation that was more a piece to be experienced than viewed, designers brought the disused empty space to life, creating an al fresco theater where flowers and plants “performed” before an audience of empty white chairs.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Multi-hued flower pots hanging upside down on the Carrers Calderers Barca, Pujada Sant Feliu. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Rolls of turf, below, leftover from the main cathedral’s installation were infinitely more interesting than the installation itself.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
The Jewish Quarter: El Call
From the 12-15th centuries, Girona’s ancient Jewish quarter is one of Europe’s most well-preserved. Its labyrinth of narrow streets and courtyards weaves through the Força Vella–-the old walled part of the city where a vibrant Jewish community thrived during the medieval period.
Garden of Center Bonastruch. Taller de Magnnèsia transformed the garden space with a liturgical theme. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Girona was the birthplace of an important branch of Kabbalah studies, the mystical and intellectual movement that non-Jews such as Madonna have popularized in the past decade. Until 1492, when the Spanish government forced all Jews to leave Spain unless they converted to Catholicism, this community frequented their synagogue, bought meat from the kosher butchers, and bathed in the mikvahs, or ritual baths. The Museum of the History of the Jews offers a detailed narrative of Girona and Catalonia’s Jewish population before their expulsion at the end of the 15th century.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
A tribute to the intensity and force of the universe, the power of water, essential to natural growth in Casa Lléo Avinay’s garden in the old Jewish Quarter, El Call. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
In the courtyard of Casa Sambola, students from the School of Art and Design of Tarragona and Reus tell the story of a couple in love separated by war. The sad and reflective woman pulls petals from the daisies daily as she says, “he loves me, he loves me not.” Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
A trail of blue hydrangeas and spheres by Art i Argenti weaving up the Escales del Carrer de Miguel Oliva i Prat. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Artful laundry was hanging at the Plaça de la Terre Carlemany, and a funky “bench” atop two planters (how’d they do that?) by Jardiners de la Vila d’Albi. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Family Affair: Mother Passes Down the Tradition to Her Daughter
My friend and trip host, festival organizer Angels Artigas Claret, owns Flor a Punt, a gorgeous little flower shop that is a highlight for anyone strolling through the old part of the city. Angel is carrying on a family tradition: her mother, Anita Claret Sargatal is one of the early founders of the Temps de Flors festival. As a testament to how people of different cultures can bond even without a shared language, Angels and I spent several hours together one evening over a long dinner at a local wine bar, discussing everything from the resurgence of the Catalan language to how her grandparents chose to open a tire museum. While I speak French and Italian but no Catalan or Spanish, Angels speaks some Italian so we conversed in bits of various languages and the rest was plain old human connection.
Angels Artigas Claret, owner of Flor a Punt. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Anita Claret Sargatal, one of the early founders of Temps de Flors, poses before an installation constructed from recycled tires at the Església Sagrat Corin, a collaboration with florists from the Escola Portuguesa Rui Rodrigues. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Tales of Tires
As a tribute to her family’s legacy, Anita Claret Sargatal collaborated with florists from the Escola Portuguesa Rui Rodrigues on an installation constructed from recycled tires set before the facade of the Església Sagrat Corin. There’s a backstory to Sargatal’s choice of tires for this installation. Sargatal’s mother (Angel’s grandmother) and her late husband Salvador Claret, a mechanic, returned from a trip to America, where they’d observed numerous roadside hotels offering services for motorists, a novel concept they’d not seen in Spain. Upon their return to Girona in 1945, they were the first in Spain to open the “American-style” Hotel de la Selva whose large sign they mounted on Pirelli tires. The hotel included a restaurant, garage, gas station, and towing service–-everything tourists traveling by car would need. Around the same time, Salvador Claret began collecting vintage cars and auto parts that are now part of the permanent display at the Salvador Claret Automobile Collection in Sils, about 25 minutes south of Girona.
The Surreal Bartering of Tires For Salvador Dali Paintings
Angels’s grandmother was a friend of the eccentric Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, who lived nearby in the town of Figueres and once offered his paintings in exchange for several of Sargatel’s vintage Pirelli tires. Dalí had a thing for automobiles, a recurrent theme in many of his works. According to Montse Aguer of the Center of Dalinian Studies at the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, the car was a symbol in 20th-century art of modernity, youth, energy, power, daring, movement, innovation, progress, and rebellion.
Visitors to the Dalí estate and museum in Port Lligat will see a full-size Michelin man, a twentieth-century icon of the auto industry, sitting like a king on a throne of Pirelli tires at the head of the swimming pool. Though Dalí had already painted The Persistence of Memory at the time, his famous work featuring surrealistic images of melting pocket watches, Sargatel declined to barter for Dalí’s artwork, insisting instead on collecting the small amount of change the artist could offer. Sargatel now owns one original Dalí, and the family laughs about the collection of valuable paintings they would have today had she known her artist friend would become one of the icons of 20th-century art.
Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Salut! Bottles of Spanish rosé (one of my faves) fill the window of the wine shop next door to my hotel. Photo: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
My deep gratitude to the City of Girona, the Hotel Ciutat de Girona, and most of all to my friends Angels Artigas Claret and Marc Grañèn for including me as a co-creator in the 2016 edition of Temps de Flors.
Disclosure: The City of Girona and Temps de Flors sponsored my trip to Girona. I was not paid to write this post; all opinions expressed herein are uniquely mine and not indicative of any sponsor opinions or positions.
