Barcelona Cathedral

Few scenes are as unexpected in the very heart of Barcelona as the Gothic cloister of its cathedral, where thirteen white geese wander among the arches and stone orange trees. They are not there by chance: they commemorate Saint Eulalia, the city's patron saint, who according to tradition herded geese on her family's estate in Sarrià and died aged just thirteen. This detail, at once tender and harrowing, is the perfect way into a church steeped in history and legend.

La Seu, as the people of Barcelona call it, is a Gothic building raised between the 13th and 15th centuries on the site of an earlier Romanesque cathedral. That cathedral, in turn, stood where a Visigothic church had been, itself preceded by an early Christian basilica whose remains can be seen underground, within the Barcelona City History Museum. Take a good look at the imposing façade: although it follows the same style, it was not completed until the 19th century, long after the rest of the complex. It has been recognised as a National Historic-Artistic Monument since 1929.

The cathedral has been dedicated to the Holy Cross since 599, and from 877 onwards it was also dedicated to Saint Eulalia. Tradition has it that the young girl denounced the persecution of Christians before the Roman governor and that, far from being heard, she suffered thirteen martyrdoms, one for each year of her life. Stripped and exposed in the forum, she is said to have been miraculously covered by a snowfall in the middle of spring; she was then rolled down the slope that now bears her name, the Baixada de Santa Eulàlia, inside a barrel filled with glass, nails and knives.

Her end came on an X-shaped cross, which became the emblem of the cathedral and the diocese, as well as the attribute with which the saint is depicted. Looking out for this cross in the decoration, walking down the nearby slope and finishing up listening to the honking of the geese in the cloister is a wonderful way to understand how the city has woven its identity around this place.