Palma Cathedral, Palma, Spain - SpottingHistory.com

Built by the Crown of Aragon on the site of a Moorish-era mosque, Palma cathedral is 121 metres long, 55 metres wide and its nave is 44 metres tall.

Designed in the Catalan Gothic style but with Northern European influences, it was begun by King James I of Aragon in 1229 but only finished in 1601. It sits within the old city of Palma atop the former citadel of the Roman city, between the Royal Palace of La Almudaina and the episcopal palace. It also overlooks the Parc de la Mar and the Mediterranean Sea.

Light pours in through the rose window - one of the world's largest, 12m across and studded with 1,236 pieces of stained glass. The columns are ringed with wrought-iron candelabra designed by Gaudi. His most controversial addition is the unfinished Crown of Thorns, fashioned from cardboard and cork and suspended above the altar. Be sure to walk around to the south front, facing the sea, to look at the Portal del Mirador a 15th-century door by Guillem Sagrera featuring scenes from the Last Supper.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

Hrvoje Šandula (2 years ago)
Great by day, great by night!

Sergey Kondratiev (2 years ago)
I'm was so impressed to see the city like that, just speechless, so beautiful, full of history, fell of love, definitely come back to see more... ??

K R (2 years ago)
Beautiful architecture, so quite and peaceful during the covid 19.Amazing sea view ?

Alexandra Bagiová (2 years ago)
Pure beauty - historical monument surrounded by grass plains, everything was clean and safe (police officers permanently making walks around). From the stairs next to the Basilica you can have a beautiful sea view with the Palma port. Highly recommended! It is must-go when getting to Palma.

Karen Chappell (2 years ago)
Well worth a visit. I used the hop on hop off bus to get here. This cathedral is one of the most beautiful i have ever seen. Worth going inside. Could easily spend all day here. I spent just under a week in Palma and came back here several times.

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Broch of Gurness

The Broch of Gurness is an Iron Age broch village. Settlement here began sometime between 500 and 200 BC. At the centre of the settlement is a stone tower or broch, which once probably reached a height of around 10 metres. Its interior is divided into sections by upright slabs. The tower features two skins of drystone walls, with stone-floored galleries in between. These are accessed by steps. Stone ledges suggest that there was once an upper storey with a timber floor. The roof would have been thatched, surrounded by a wall walk linked by stairs to the ground floor. The broch features two hearths and a subterranean stone cistern with steps leading down into it. It is thought to have some religious significance, relating to an Iron Age cult of the underground.

The remains of the central tower are up to 3.6 metres high, and the stone walls are up to 4.1 metres thick. The tower was likely inhabited by the principal family or clan of the area but also served as a last resort for the village in case of an attack.

The broch continued to be inhabited while it began to collapse and the original structures were altered. The cistern was filled in and the interior was repartitioned. The ruin visible today reflects this secondary phase of the broch's use.

The site is surrounded by three ditches cut out of the rock with stone ramparts, encircling an area of around 45 metres diameter. The remains of numerous small stone dwellings with small yards and sheds can be found between the inner ditch and the tower. These were built after the tower, but were a part of the settlement's initial conception. A 'main street' connects the outer entrance to the broch. The settlement is the best-preserved of all broch villages.

Pieces of a Roman amphora dating to before 60 AD were found here, lending weight to the record that a 'King of Orkney' submitted to Emperor Claudius at Colchester in 43 AD.

At some point after 100 AD the broch was abandoned and the ditches filled in. It is thought that settlement at the broch continued into the 5th century AD, the period known as Pictish times. By that time the broch was not used anymore and some of its stones were reused to build smaller dwellings on top of the earlier buildings. Until about the 8th century, the site was just a single farmstead.

In the 9th century, a Norse woman was buried at the site in a stone-lined grave with two bronze brooches and a sickle and knife made from iron. Other finds suggest that Norse men were buried here too.

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