Though we’re still enjoying season 6, we’re already looking ahead to next year and we have some locations news today, thanks to our friends at Los Siete Reinos!

El Punt Avui reports this week that Game of Thrones will not be returning for season 7 filming to Girona, the city in Catalonia, Spain that served as a major location for season 6.

Girona City Council has not confirmed it but El Punt Avui‘s source seems to be confident that it’s not happening this year. It had been reported in April that Girona was in negotiations for Game of Thrones to come back for next season, but apparently those talks didn’t work out.

Girona provided the backdrop for many key scenes this season in Braavos and King’s Landing. The confrontation at the sept of Baelor, blind Arya begging, the scenes with the Braavos theatrical players, and an action sequence coming in next Sunday’s episode (spotted in the episode 8 trailer), among other scenes, were filmed in the city.

The show not returning to Girona seems to be more due to script reasons, according to El Punt Avui, which leads us to wonder what this means for next season’s plots. Arya’s not likely to spend much more time in Braavos, given that she’s been stabbed and is running from the Faceless Men, but what about King’s Landing? The capital city of Westeros has always been a central focus in filming, which leads us to wonder if Game of Thrones will be returning to Croatia.

In February, of this year while chatting on a podcast, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss discussed a scene they were currently writing, describing something that had “happened today.” They mention changing a particular scene from an interior, 4-character scene set in the throne room to a massive parade through King’s Landing, which would essentially become” a 3-day extravaganza” with a thousand extras in Dubrovnik. Was it an idle mention, as locations weren’t locked in back then, or is the show indeed headed back to Croatia? And if so, what is that small scene that may have become so large (unless the other producers smacked them on the hand and told them to scale it back)?

Los Siete Reinos has some very intriguing news regarding other locations being scouted. They report that Fresco Films (the production company for GoT in Spain) has been searching all over Spain, looking at locations containing “castles”. (Unfortunately we can’t narrow that down as Spain has a whole heaping lot of castles.) They’ve heard from sources that the seventh season of Game of Thrones “will have a significant number of battles in castles or next to them.” With that info in mind, it certainly makes sense GoT would be on the hunt for castle locations.

Fighting around castles- that makes me think war is coming to Westeros once more.

L7R also reports that Fresco Films has been visiting northern Spain, especially the region of Galicia, looking for locations. It’s not confirmed whether the Galicia sites are for GoT or for another production Fresco is working on. As L7R notes, it would be a little surprising (but not out of the question) for GoT to shoot there since the cooler climate and terrain are somewhat similar to Northern Ireland.

We’re still waiting to hear whether Game of Thrones will be officially filming in Canary Islands. Two weeks ago, reports from Spain told us that the islands were being considered for shooting this year, and apparently that location is still a possibility, despite the Girona news.

Thanks to Javi of Los Siete Reinos for his assistance with this piece!