Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma (La Seu)
Rising straight from the waterfront like a sandstone cliff face, Palma's La Seu is one of the most dramatically sited Gothic cathedrals in Europe. Step inside to find Gaudí's unfinished baldachin and a rose window that floods the nave with amber light every winter solstice.
A Cathedral Built on Conquest
James I of Aragon ordered construction in 1229 after taking Mallorca from the Moors, and builders worked for nearly four centuries to raise these impossibly slender buttresses above the Bay of Palma.
The interior holds the second-largest Gothic rose window in the world — 12 metres across and filled with 1,236 pieces of stained glass — casting kaleidoscopic light across the nave on clear mornings.
Gaudí's Surprising Touch
Between 1904 and 1914 Antoni Gaudí was commissioned to modernise the interior, repositioning the choir and suspending a crown-of-thorns baldachin of iron and lamps above the altar — a jarring, brilliant contrast to the medieval stone.
Arrive at 8 am before the tour groups and you'll have the nave almost to yourself, the light still low and golden through the south-facing windows.
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