CATHEDRAL, Introduction

Hi, I'm Ed, your personal guide. Together with MyWoWo, I'd like to welcome you to one of the wonders of the world.

Today I'll accompany you through the Cathedral, which is one of the most spiritual places of Barcelona, and its religious heart.

The Cathedral is dedicated to the city's patron saint, Saint Eulalia, and to the Holy Cross, but is also known as La Seu, or the "seat", as it was once the home of the diocese. If you come during the day, I suggest returning in the evening when its façade is completely illuminated and is a beautiful mixture of shadows and light.

You're now at the highest point of the Gothic Quarter in an area full of archaeological remains; in fact a church had already stood here before the Christian era, but it was destroyed just before the year 1000 when the Arabs sacked Barcelona. Another church was later erected in Romanesque style by Count Ramon Berenguer I, who came to rule when he was only eleven years old, and his wife Almodis. At the end of the 1200s, King Jamie II "The Just" ordered the construction of a new Gothic Cathedral, whose design was entrusted to the Flemish master builders. The façade and towers were only completed at the end of the 1800s in Neo-Gothic style....