After enjoying the coolth and peace of the hills it was down to the heat, busy-ness and concentrated loveliness of Girona.

Here’s the view from our tiny apartment, looking down the shallow river that runs through town, occupied by noisy ducks, flocks of pigeons and swooping seagulls. The bridges (and statues, and benches, and balcony railings, and people…) around the city were all adorned with yellow ribbons for Catalan independence; it’s hard to see them in this sketch but they’re fluttering from the railings on all these bridges. Catalan flags were also very visible wherever we went.

Here’s a night view of the ribbons and a recently added flag on a statue in Independence Square, drawn fairly fast with the lovely Duke Confucius fude pen…

…and ribbons on trees and a lamp-post in the same square.

One of the lovely things about urban sketching is being part of a world-wide community, connecting with sketchers in other countries, mostly meeting online in virtual spaces, but sometimes in person… I got in touch with the very active Girona Urban Sketchers group before we left the UK, and had a lovely evening with them at the cathedral. I sketched from halfway down the grand steps that lead to the entrance (made famous as the location for this scene and others in Game of Thrones), looking down on fellow tourists.

Here’s the full group before we left for a nearby bar; many thanks to Toni, Josep and the rest of the group for making me so welcome, and apologies for my lack of Spanish and Catalan!