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Cathedral: La Seu

Please don’t feed the geese!

Cathedral plan

Nearly everyone seems to the Sagrada Família is Barcelona’s cathedral, but the real one is a Gothic beauty in the Barri Gòtic better known as La Seu or the Catedral de Santa Eulalia.

It’s the third church to stand on the site. The 4th-century original (partly visible in the Museu d’Història de la Ciutat) was flattened in Al-Mansur’s raid in 985; of the second, a Romanesque church built from 1046 to 1058 by Ramón Berenguer I, only a doorway remains. In 1298, Jaume II began the current model.

Long exposition shot of the Barcelona Cathedral

The façade of La Seu provides a fine backdrop to the sardanes danced here at noon on Sunday, even if it doesn’t look quite right for such a venerable church— it was only begun in 1882, financed by a big-time banker, and vaguely following the original plans of 1408 by a French master named Charles Galtés.

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Medieval Art and Architecture

Barri Gòtic

Churches

Top Sights

Text © Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls

Images by Canon in 2D, Fernando, Jorge Lascar, Creative COmmons License, Leonora Enking, OscarV055, Papix, Creative Commons License