Location
Girona, Catalunya
Girona
The World Masters Orienteering Championship 2025 will be held in Girona, the capital of the Costa Brava-Eastern Pyrenees, in Catalunya.
The city is located in the northeast of Spain, 61 km south of the border with France, 96 km from the city of Perpignan and 104 km north of Barcelona, which are some of the most important nearby cities, and is very well connected by road, train, air and sea.
The ancient city of Gerunda founded by the Romans in 77 BC to protect themselves from the Iberian settlers of the area, occupies a plain between the mountains of Gavarres and Guilleries where four rivers converge (Ter, Onyar, Güell and Galligants).
Its historic center or old quarter has unique monumental elements in the continent, and is delimited by the passeig de la Muralla, the wall path of the old Carolingian wall (ninth century) and of the late Middle Ages (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries).
Among its monuments are the “call” (the old Jewish quarter, one of the best preserved in the Iberian Peninsula), the colorful houses of the Onyar, the Arab baths and the cathedral, with a single nave, which is the widest in the world in gothic style. Also noteworthy are the Church of Sant Feliu, the Monastery of Sant Pere de Galligants, the Church of Sant Nicolau, or modernist buildings such as the Casa Masó and the Farinera Teixidor. A wonderful city that will host the Sprint events.
The Costa Brava is the Girona sea front, with 200 km between Blanes and Portbou. Full of small coastal villages, beaches, coves, promenades, coastal paths, and plenty of corners where you can enjoy the sun and the sea. The Costa Brava also has natural parks such as Cap de Creus, the Medes Islands or the Aiguamolls de l’Empordà, and a lot of natural landscapes. The Costa Brava is the protagonist in multiple literary works and films such as the mythical “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman” with Ava Gardner, or immortalized in paintings by geniuses such as Salvador Dalí, who lived here. The Costa Brava also features wonderful pine forests and sandy terrains where our participants will enjoy their favorite sport.
Participants will also be able to enjoy the old towns of Besalú and Banyoles during the Sprint Model Event. The towns are two jewels that, beyond visiting them with a map in hand, will require a leisure walk and enjoying them by sitting in their bars and restaurants. And what to say about Pals that you can visit with the event models, the forest qualifications and the middle distance final; which, in addition to enjoying a coastal towns and its beaches and promenades, will allow participants to visit la Costa Brava.
And finally, we’ll head to Les Gavarres, in the municipality of Cassà de la Selva. Centuries-old cork oak forests have turned the town into a world-renowned hub for cork stopper manufacturing.
