Catedral

Palma’s vast cathedral is the city's major architectural landmark. Aside from its sheer scale and undoubted beauty, its stunning interior features, designed by Antoni Gaudí and renowned contemporary artist Miquel Barceló, make this unlike any cathedral elsewhere in the world.

The Catedral occupies the site of what was the central mosque of Medina Mayurka, capital of Muslim Mallorca for three centuries. Although Jaume I and his marauding men forced their way into the city in 1229, work on the Catedral (La Seu in Catalan), one of Europe’s largest, did not begin until 1300. Rather, the mosque was used in the interim as a church and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Work wasn’t completed until 1601.

The awesome structure is predominantly Gothic, apart from the main facade. The main facade is startling, quite beautiful and completely mongrel. The original was a Renaissance cherry on the Gothic cake, but an earthquake in 1851 (which caused considerable panic but no loss of life) severely damaged it. Rather than mend the original, it was decided to add some neo-Gothic flavour, which with its interlaced flying buttresses on each flank and soaring pinnacles forms a masterful example of the style. The result is a hybrid of the Renaissance original (in particular the main doorway) and an inevitably artificial-feeling, 19th-century pseudo-Gothic monumentalism.

Entry to the church is from the north flank. You get tickets in the first room and then enter a sacristy, which hosts the main part of the small Museu de la Catedral, at the centre of which is a huge gold-plated monstrance. Interesting items include a portable altar, thought to have belonged to Jaume I. Its little compartments contain saints’ relics. Other reliquaries can be seen, including one purporting to hold three thorns from Christ’s crown of thorns. Next come two chapter houses, one Gothic (by Guillem Sagrera) and the second baroque. The latter is dominated by a relicario de la vera cruz (reliquary of the true cross).

On passing through one of the side chapels into the cathedral itself, your gaze soars high to the cross vaults, supported by slender, octagonal pillars. The broad nave and aisles are flanked by chapels. The walls support three levels of exquisite stained glass, including five magnificent rose windows. The grandest (the oculus maior or ‘great eye’) is above the main altar and is said to be the largest in the world. Visit in the morning and see the stunning effect of its coloured light and shapes reflected on the west wall. This spectacle is at its best in February and November.

Gaudí carried out renovations from 1903 to 1914. His most important contribution was opening up many of the long bricked-up windows, adding new stained glass and improving lighting. What most people notice today, however, is the strange baldachin that hovers over the main altar. Topped by a fanciful sculpture of Christ crucified and flanked by the Virgin Mary and St John, it looks like the gaping jaw of some oversized prehistoric shark dangling from the ceiling of an old science museum. Some 35 lamps hang from it and what looks like a flying carpet is spread above it. The genius of Barcelona Modernisme seems to have left behind an indecipherable pastiche, but then this was supposed to be a temporary version. The definitive one was never made.

Not content with this strangeness, the parish commissioned contemporary Mallorquin artist Miquel Barceló (an agnostic) with the remake of the Capella del Santíssim i Sant Pere, at the rear of the south aisle. Done in 15 tonnes of ceramics, this dreamscape representing the miracle of the loaves and fishes was unveiled in 2007. Slabs of clay seem to have been plastered onto the chapel walls. On the left, fish and other marine creatures burst from the wall. The opposite side has a jungle look, with representations of bread and fruit. In between the fish and palm fronds, and standing above stacks of skulls, appears a luminous body that is supposed to be Christ but is modelled on the short and stocky artist.

Other notable elements of the interior include the giant organ, built in 1798 (free recitals are held at noon on the first Tuesday of each month), and the two pulpits, the smaller of which was partly redone by Gaudí.

Mass times vary, but one always takes place at 9am.