Seville Cathedral

Few visits in Spain are as awe-inspiring as stepping inside Seville Cathedral. This is no local boast: in 1988 Guinness World Records certified it as the cathedral with the largest surface area in the world, and you sense its sheer scale the moment you cross the threshold. Gothic in structure and enriched with Renaissance additions, it forms part of the ensemble that UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, together with the Royal Alcázar and the Archivo de Indias.

The building also holds a memory older than the cathedral itself. It rose on the site of the city's great mosque, which had served as a Christian church for more than a hundred and fifty years and was by then badly dilapidated. Two parts of that mosque survive and are now emblems of Seville: the minaret, transformed into the Giralda, whose uppermost section was built by Hernán Ruiz, and the Patio de los Naranjos (Court of the Orange Trees), a shady haven that makes the perfect place to end your visit.

Tradition places the start of construction in 1401, although the documents do not mention it until 1433. Among the first master builders was Master Carlín, a Norman seasoned on other great Gothic cathedrals in Europe who is believed to have arrived fleeing the Hundred Years' War. On 10 October 1506 the last stone was laid at the top of the dome, but work continued under architects such as Diego de Riaño, Martín de Gainza and Asensio de Maeda until the whole was completed in 1593. Its solidity was put to the test in 1755, when the Lisbon earthquake caused it only minor damage.

Beyond its stonework, the church is also a pantheon of the first rank. Here lie the remains of Christopher Columbus and of three Castilian kings: Ferdinand III the Saint, his son Alfonso X the Wise and Peter I the Cruel. And it remains a living place of worship, with daily services and major celebrations such as Corpus Christi, the Immaculate Conception and the Virgen de los Reyes, whose feast day is held every 15 August.